The 2016-17 season will rank as one of the fondest memories for fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs both for the on-ice highlights and for the many achievements now etched in the team’s record books.
And it was almost entirely due to the New Kids on the Block setting a new standard for rookie performance in the blue and white.
Let’s get to the facts.
A team-record 123 goals were scored by rookies as well as 304 total points this season, which is the third-highest such total in NHL history.
The Leafs were just the second team to have three rookies with 60 points (Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander). The 1980-81 Quebec Nordiques had Dale Hunter, Peter and Anton Stastny. And I would (with bias) put an asterisk beside the Stastny brothers being “true” rookies.
It was just the sixth time in NHL history that a team has had three rookie 20-goal scorers (Matthews, Nylander, and Connor Brown). Marner was one goal away from making it four.
Matthews set new franchise bests by a rookie with 40 goals (to pass Wendel Clark’s 34 in 1985-86), and 69 points (Peter Ihnacak had 66 1982-83).
He was also the only NHL player this season to record at least one shot on goal in each and every one of the 82 regular-season games. Teemu Selanne in 1992-93 was the last first-year player to accomplish the feat.
Marner’s 42 assists bettered the long-standing Leafs rookie record of 40 by Gus Bodnar in 1940-41.
Nylander set team rookie records with nine power-play goals and the longest point streak, which reached 12 consecutive games.
Zach Hyman took over the record for most short-handed goals by a Leafs rookie with four.
Nikita Zaitsev’s 36 points are the second to only Borje Salming’s 39 in 1973-74 for the highest total by a Leafs rookie defenceman.
Toronto is the only team to have had three different players (Matthews, Marner, and Nylander) be named Rookie of the Month in the same season.
Nazem Kadri and Matthews came together to mark the first time the Leafs had two 30-goal centres since Darryl Sittler and Bill Derlago in 1980-81.
Even more milestones were reached in the playoffs:
Marner became the first Leafs rookie to score in a playoff game since Jeff Farkas (2000), the first Leafs teenager to score in a playoff game since Daniel Marois (1988) and the first Leafs rookie to score on his first-ever NHL playoff shift since Andy Blair (1929).
When Matthews and Nylander scored in the same playoff game, something two Toronto rookies hadn’t done since Wendel Clark and Steve Thomas in 1986. Matthews also joined Clark as the only teenagers in NHL history to score in four straight playoff games, Clark also accomplished that in 1986.
Kasperi Kapanen joined the party late, but made his presence felt: His Game 2 overtime winner was the first playoff OT goal scored by a Leafs rookie since Gerry Ehman (1959). It is also the first goal scored beyond the first overtime period on the road since the legendary Frank Mahovlich did it in 1960 against Detroit.
It will literally remain a season to remember.
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