In this Oct. 16, 2008, photo, Vancouver Canucks forward Daniel Sedin skates against the Detroit Red Wings in the second period of an NHL hockey game in Detroit. Sedin will miss four to six weeks with a broken foot. Sedin was walking on crutches on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009. He was hit in the foot by a shot from teammate Alex Edler in a 7-1 win over Montreal on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
AP
I was reading over some of last night’s results and I thought: wow, Ryan Kesler’s putting up points again. While I questioned his “elite” star power when I heard that the two-way center was named the NHL 2K11 cover star, it sure seems like he’s beginning to earn that status. He’s been on a hot streak lately and it got me to thinking: which players are on the biggest hot streaks since the trade deadline/Olympics finished?
Using Yahoo’s software to group the top players for the month of March, I think this will give an interesting (though overly simplistic) idea of some of the players who are achieving the most since the over-sized candles were blown out in Vancouver and players found a new home.
Top 10 skaters “overall”
- Daniel Sedin (apparently hits aren’t a big factor in Yahoo’s ratings)
- Paul Stastny
- Mikael Samuelsson (take that, whoever chose team Sweden!)
- Chris Stewart (Colorado’s under the radar power forward)
- Brooks Laich (not sure how he got on here with 9 points, but it’s hard not to “Laich” the choice. Hey-oh!)
- Peter Mueller
- Mike Richards
- Steven Stamkos
- Henrik Sedin (the twins can never be too far apart, can they?)
- Ryan Kesler
Top 5 goal scorers
- Mikael Samuelsson - 9
- Chris Stewart - 8
- Simon Gagne - 8
- Lee Stempniak - 7
- Steven Stamkos - 7
Top 5 assist leaders
- Daniel Sedin - 12
- Paul Stastny - 11
- Henrik Sedin - 11
- Bryan McCabe (!!!) - 10
- Patrick Kane - 10
Top 5 goalies (according to whatever Yahoo! looks at - probably GAA, save %, SO, wins)
- Ilya Bryzgalov
- Pekka Rinne
- Jose Theodore (time to get that contract, Theo!)
- Jaroslav Halak
- Craig Anderson
And, finally, the top 5 in points scored on the powerplay
- Nicklas Lidstrom - 7
- Paul Stastny - 7
- Mike Richards - 6
- Brad Richards - 6
- Brooks Laich - 6
(Weird side note: every stat category had a clear top 5. Every time I got to a sixth player, they had one point lower. The lack of ties strikes me as very unusual. Sorry, I know you don’t care ... I’ll go back to the basement.)