Draisaitl's dominant performance last night against the Nashville Predators where the forward scored 4 goals and 5 points has once again sparked conversation about the Hart Trophy and who should win it.
First off let me say that the Hart is a stupid award, mainly because League MVP is such a difficult award to try and articulate what the specifications are.
Games are won by producing more goals than the other team... so should the player who has scored the most goals for his team be the MVP?
Here are the last 10 Rocket Richard Trophy winners, the bolded names also won the Hart that season:
18/19 - Alex Ovechkin 17-18 - Alex Ovechkin 16/17 - Sidney Crosby 15/16 - Alex Ovechkin 14/15 - Alex Ovechkin 13/14 - Alex Ovechkin 12/13 - Alex Ovechkin 11/12 - Steven Stamkos 10/11 - Corey Perry 09/10 - Sidney Crosby
That doesn't seem to be the case so what about the player that has scored the most points in general? Here are the last 10 Art Ross winners, again bolding the players that also won the Hart.
18/19 - Nikita Kucherov 17-18 - Connor McDavid 16/17 - Connor McDavid 15/16 - Patrick Kane 14/15 - Jamie Benn 13/14 - Sidney Crosby 12/13 - Martin St.Louis 11/12 - Evgeni Malkin 10/11 - Daniel Sedin 09/10 - Henrik Sedin
60% of the Art Ross winners over the last decade have also gone on to win the Hart so that is a bit more of a fair assumption but still not a guarantee.
The issue with the Hart is that it is voted on by media types and reporters around the league and we all know how unreliable they can be (that's why you smarter people come to me for your Oilers news). Each writer who gets a vote each has their own biases and beliefs on what dictates a Hart worthy season.
When Hall won in 2017/2018 he finished the season 6th in total points, 8th in goals, and 10th in assists but received 12 more 1st place nominations than the runner up Nate MacKinnon. MacKinnon tied Hall in goals but finished higher in assists and total points.
The reason? Hall was a force on his team and finished 41 points higher than the second best producer on the team that season, Nico Hischier. The Devils went to the playoffs that season solely on the back of Taylor Hall. A narrative like that makes for a great story and the voters will eat that stuff up like the donuts in the press area.
Voters want a special narrative so allow me to give it to them.
- Draisaitl is on pace to hit 130 points this season. Doing so would make him the first player since 1996 to have done so.
- Draisaitl could still hit 50 goals this season AND win the Rocket Richard
- Tied for 1st with Pastrnak for game winning goals with 10. Edmonton has won 35 games this season so that is nearly 30% of the Oilers wins directly due to Draisaitl.
- Has been producing like crazy since being separated from McDavid. Since the beginning of January Draisaitl leads the league in points and is second in EV strength points.
I could go on but there is also a game to discuss today, needless to say, Draisaitl should 100% be the Hart favoruite.
---
LINEUPS
OILERS
RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto Athanasiou-McDavid-Ennis Neal-Sheahan-Archibald Khaira-Haas-Kassian
Nurse-Bear Jones-Larsson Lagesson-Benning
Koskinen
- Not official lineups but James Neal will play tonight and Oscar Klefbom will not. Kris Russell is a game-time decision.
STARS
Benn-Seguin-Perry Hintz-Dickinson-Gurianov Cogliano-Faksa-Comeau Janmark-Pavelski-Radulov
Lindell-Klingberg Heiskanen-Johns Oleksiak-Sekera
Bishop
---
3 KEYS TO VICTORY
1.) Flames Cheering For Neal - Calgary Flames fans will be checking out the Oilers boxscores over the next weeks waiting for him to hit the magic number of 21. Should he do so, Edmonton will owe Calgary a third round pick in the coming draft. Having a third round pick would be good... winning games is better. If Neal is able to produce some goals away from McDavid and the PP it is only good for this team.
2.) RNH Brilliant - Somewhat lost in the recent hullabaloo of last night was that RNH had himself a 3 point night, his second in a row. Ryan Nugent Hopkins has produced the fourth most points in the league since the beginning of January. Tonight Nuge has a chance to pot his 20th goal of the season.
3.) Scoring On The Stars - Seguin leads the Stars in points with 50 points in 65 games with Benn second with 38. With just those numbers one might be led to believe that Dallas is having a rough season but instead they sit with a +9 goal differential and 3rd in the Central. Dallas has turned into a team that was all offense and no defense into one of the toughest teams to score against.
---
FILM OF THE DAY
Today's film is a short film titled, "Why Draisaitl Deserves The Hart." Enjoy.