It’s the Age of Auston; the era of Crosby and the Connors; Kuch and Mac; Quinn and Cale.
And on the weekend that the Pittsburgh Penguins paid tribute to one of the game’s all-time greats, it’s impossible to deny these golden offensive days for hockey.
Until a very short time ago, the achievements of Jaromir Jagr and his ilk seemed like they were from a different sport. Seventy-goal seasons, 130-point campaigns; it almost seemed like a baby boomer’s exaggerated tale of the league they watched.
We just lifted No. 68 into the PPG Paints Arena rafters Sunday night and the entire weekend helped drive home the fact that seasons like the ones Jagr and his contemporaries used to put up are truly attainable again.
Auston Matthews netted his second consecutive hat trick and sixth three-goal game of the year on Saturday in Toronto’s trouncing of the Anaheim Ducks. It’s starting to feel inevitable that the 26-year-old American will give us our first 70-goal season since 1992-93 and if I told you he was going to bury 75, you’d probably nod along in I-could-see-it fashion.
The top two guys in the Art Ross chase — Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon, the latter scoring in his team’s 4-3 win over Arizona on Sunday — are both on pace to hit 130 points. The league hasn’t seen two 130-point guys in the same campaign since Jagr and Mario Lemieux did it as teammates in 1995-96. Connor McDavid — No. 3 in the scoring race after his assist against the Stars on Saturday night — basically needs to play at a 130-point pace the rest of the year to hit that number, too. In his past 33 contests, he’s playing at a 160-point clip.
Four defencemen — Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar, Noah Dobson and Victor Hedman — are playing at a point-per-game rate with at least 50 games under their belt and a fifth — Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard, who picked up two apples versus Dallas — has 50 points in 51 outings. The last time we had at least four D-men finishing as PPG guys was that thunderous 1992-93 campaign. Two guys did it last year and three did it in 2021-22. Before that, we had a total of six point-per-game defencemen in basically 25 years between 1996 and 2020.
Connor Bedard isn’t going to set any records this year, but is there any doubt this kid will be driving these conversations in a massive way in coming years? The guy just played his second game after missing barely a month with a fractured jaw and he goes 1-1-2 in a win over the Ottawa Senators to give himself three points in two games since getting back into Chicago’s lineup.
Let’s put a bow on this by circling back to Steeltown, where Crosby watched with as much admiration as the rest of us while the Penguins, and entire hockey world, paused to applaud the NHL’s second-most prolific scorer of all-time.
Crosby scored the game-opening goal in Pittsburgh’s 2-1 loss, is on pace for 48 goals this year and could conceivably still join Alex Ovechkin as the only guy aged 36 or older to ever net 50.
And you know what? Crosby is 364 points behind Jagr for No. 2 all-time and 443 points from joining Wayne Gretzky as the second member of the 2,000-point club.
If Crosby, showing no signs of slowing down and still as passionate as anyone on skates, takes a page out of Jagr’s playbook and skates into his early 40s, 2,000 points is completely in play. McDavid, meanwhile, will be halfway there by next fall at age 27.
Night after night in the NHL, these guys in the early, middle and late stages of their careers are creating a tantalizing anything-is-possible spirit when it comes to even the loftiest of achievements.
Other Takeaways
• There’s certainly not much Matthew Tkachuk and the Florida Panthers can’t do right now. The Panthers went to Tampa Bay and trounced their in-state rivals 9-2 on Saturday as the Cats — who’ve won nine of their past 10 and 11 straight on the road — continue to cement their status as the team to beat in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Tkachuk buried two goals and added two assists to give him 44 points in his past 26 outings. The only player with more points since Dec. 16 is MacKinnon (50).
• The Columbus Blue Jackets eked out a 4-3 win over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night when captain Boone Jenner slipped a puck past Kaapo Kahkonen with 13 ticks left in the third. While few non-partisans are invested in the results of these two squads just now, it was obviously a needed boost for a Jackets team that just axed Jarmo Kekalainen as GM. The game is also a nice snapshot of where these two teams are and how, relatively speaking, Columbus’s situation is a lot better than other bottom-feeders. No shade at the Sharks, but they desperately need a lottery win to jolt their program and, even if they do get former Jr. Shark Macklin Celebrini at first overall, it feels like there’s a long road to hoe.
As for the Jackets, they already have the currently-injured Adam Fantilli. Zach Werenski just needs to stay healthy; David Jiricek should be a right-shooting top-four stud, and it’s easy to picture a new coach getting ultra-talented 2021 fifth-overall pick Kent Johnson rolling by next fall. If you throw some lottery luck Columbus’s way and give the Jackets Celebrini, the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs are in the conversation next October. Regardless, by the time the Jackets host the Red Wings in a long-awaited outdoor game around this time next year, things could look much, much better in Ohio.
• I get that the outdoor games can feel gimmicky, but the two open-air affairs at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on the weekend affirmed how fun and compelling these matchups can be. Sunday’s contest between the Rangers and Islanders was an absolute barn-burner, with the Blueshirts potting two third-period goals to tie the game before Artemi Panarin came through in overtime. And the spectacle on Saturday may have been even better when the Devils got a huge two points in a 6-3 win over Philly. The Sopranos-style tracksuits the Devils showed up in were truly amazing, but nothing can touch the Rocky-inspired grey sweats Philadelphia rocked in honour of its favourite fictional son. Absolutely amazing.
Weekend Warrior
Kristen Campbell put up a 30-save shutout on Friday night at Scotiabank Arena as her PWHL Toronto squad blanked Montreal 3-0. The game (and stop us if you’ve heard this before) was played before a record crowd of 19,285 fans for women’s pro hockey. Just awesome stuff.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Vancouver Canucks (37-13-6) The Phil Kessel Watch continues. We’ll see if the NHL’s ironman puts pen to paper with Vancouver this week after hitting the ice with the team’s AHL affiliate.
2. Winnipeg Jets (33-14-5) After making 35 saves in a 4-2 win over Vancouver on Saturday, Connor Hellebuyck has now turned aside 87 of the past 90 pucks thrown his way.
3. Edmonton Oilers (32-18-1) Corey Perry scored for the second straight game (and picked up an apple) on Saturday and played 16:39, the most he’s seen in seven games wearing an Oilers uniform.
4. Toronto Maple Leafs (29-16-8) Auston who?? After depositing a pair of tallies versus Anaheim on Saturday, Bobby McMann has five goals in his past three outings.
5. Calgary Flames (25-25-5) Saturday’s 5-0 shellacking at the hands of the Red Wings on home ice felt like a death knell for Calgary’s slim playoff hopes. The Flames, after a run where they scored 14 goals in three games, were blanked for the second time in three outings.
6. Montreal Canadiens (22-25-8) There were times where it felt like Nick Suzuki being called a 1C was a charitable label. Well, the 24-year-old — after scoring again in Saturday’s loss to the Caps — has gone 8-8-16 in his past 10 games and might finish as a point-per-game player this year.
7. Ottawa Senators (22-27-2) After outshooting the Blackhawks 42-22 on Saturday but losing 3-2, Ottawa officially has the worst five-on-five save percentage (.896) in the NHL.
The Week Ahead
• There’s a big afternoon slate on Monday with Presidents Day in the U.S. and Family Day in Canada. The best matchup is Dallas visiting Boston at 1 p.m. ET, while Auston Matthews — sitting on 48 goals — is on 50 watch Monday afternoon in St. Louis. If he doesn’t do it then, it could happen in his home state of Arizona on Thursday.
• The Canucks are in Colorado for a huge Central Division tilt on Tuesday.
• On the heels of the ageless Jagr having his number retired, the Blackhawks will honour native son Chris Chelios on Sunday by lifting his No. 7 to the United Center rafters ahead of a game with the Detroit Red Wings. Chelios was 48 years old when he played his final shifts for the Atlanta Thrashers and anchored some incredible Hawks teams in the early 1990s that just couldn’t quite get over the hump. He won the Norris Trophy at age 27 in Montreal, finished as runner up at age 40 in Detroit and claimed two more in between as a member of the Blackhawks.
