“Anytime that I have a vote for the Ted Lindsay I’m pretty sure I just write his name down every time no matter what, just because of the respect I have for him as a player and how good he is and how good he’s been ever since he’s been in the league," Matthews said of McDavid. McDavid certainly had another amazing season with 44 goals and 123 points in 80 contests, but Matthews became just the third player of the salary cap era to reach the 60-goal milestone.

Matthews also won the Ted Lindsay Award, meaning that there was consensus between the NHLPA voters and members of the media in terms of who the best player was this season. Matthews cleanly won the Hart with 1,630 points while Connor McDavid finished in second place with 1,111 points and Igor Shesterkin was third with 738 points. Matthews, who had 60 goals and 106 points in 73 games, Hart and Ted Lindsay wins were the first of his career. He also won the Calder Trophy in 2017 and has claimed the Rocket Richard for each of the last two seasons.

Matthews won the respect and votes of his peers by scoring 60 goals and 106 points in 73 games this season. He had an incredible stretch of 51 goals over 50 games played from Nov. 24-Apr. 9. Connor McDavid and Roman Josi were the other two nominees for the Ted Lindsay. Matthews is also a finalist for the Hart Trophy.

Matthews posted an assist on Morgan Rielly's second-period goal, but Toronto's offense was otherwise non-existent against a lights-out Andrei Vasilevskiy. The star forward finishes the series having posted four goals and nine points across seven games this postseason. Despite developing into one of the brightest stars in the league, Matthews has yet to advance past the first round in any of his six seasons in the NHL.