There was a time last season when it looked like Steve Stamkos and Sidney Crosby would fight tooth and nail for the Rocket Richard Trophy. They were both scoring goals at a remarkable pace. Then Crosby’s season got derailed by a concussion and as for Stamkos, well, he just seemed to lose his scoring touch. In fact, Stamkos scored just seven goals in 31 games after the All-Star break last season. So as good as he was in the first half of the 2011-12 campaign, the fear was that he would, at some point, suffer a similar collapse.
Although there’s still nearly two months of regular season hockey left to play, Stamkos already has five goals in six games since the All-Star break. In fact, he’s riding a four-game goal scoring streak after netting the game-winner in Tampa Bay’s 2-1 victory over Buffalo on Saturday. Anything could happen and Stamkos might still lose the Rocket Richard Trophy despite his current seven-goal lead on Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel. All the same, he isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.