The start to Mike Matheson’s first campaign with his hometown Montreal Canadiens was rather ominous. The West Island native suffered an abdominal strain in the morning skate ahead of a preseason game in Gander, Newfoundland. He would end up missing over a month of action and his new club’s first 17 games of the season.
He eventually donned the bleu-blanc-rouge for his first regular season game on November 19th and what a debut it was. Matheson played a team leading 23:57 and scored a goal in a thrilling come from behind 5-4 shootout win over the Philadelphia Flyers at the Bell Centre on a Saturday night. Surely the kind of game he dreamed of playing in while growing up a Habs fan in the nearby suburb of Pointe-Claire.
He was off and running and went on to pick up 6 points in his first 9 games but then more bad luck felled him as a lower body injury caused him to be out for 17 of the next 18 games. The season seemed to be cursed, but Matheson persevered.
He managed to stay healthy the rest of the way and despite the disjointed way it started, Matheson went on to have an outstanding year. In 48 games, he had 8 goals and 26 assists for 34 points. Those numbers actually stack up as some of the best any Canadiens defenseman has put up in the past 20 years.
I looked back and only 10 times since 2002-03 has a Montreal defenseman averaged 0.7 points-per-game or better in a single season. Have a look at the list below:
2012-13 P.K. Subban: 38 pts in 42 games, +12 rating (won the Norris Trophy)
2008-09 Andrei Markov: 64 pts in 78 games, -2 rating
2006-07 Sheldon Souray: 64 pts in 81 games, -28 rating
2007-08 Mark Streit: 62 pts in 81 games, -6 rating
2020-21 Jeff Petry: 42 pts in 55 games, +6 rating
2009-10 Andrei Markov: 34 pts in 45 games, +11 rating
2015-16 P.K. Subban: 51 pts in 68 games, +4 rating
2014-15 P.K. Subban: 60 pts in 82 games, +21 rating
2022-23 Mike Matheson: 34 pts in 48 games, +7 rating
2007-08 Andrei Markov: 58 pts in 82 games, +1 rating
What makes Matheson’s season even more remarkable is that he also managed a +7 rating on a team that finished 5th worst in the league. Of the top offensive seasons from Habs blueliners in recent history shown above, only three had a better +/- rating even though most were on better rosters that finished higher in the standings.
Matheson essentially played like a true number 1, his PPG over a full season would have ranked him in the top 20 in the NHL among all defensemen and his plus/minus is still in the top 100 despite the Habs being a bottom feeder.
If you tuned out at the end of last year like many Canadiens fan did you may have missed it, but the Habs have a new leader on the back end and if he can build off of year 1 and put a couple more seasons like that together we could be mentioning Mike Matheson in the same breath as the likes of Subban and Markov.
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