Before the start of the season we looked at the decline of the 100-point scorer in the NHL[1] and how it has pretty much become an unreachable mark in today's game, even for the league's top players. So let's check back in and see how that is going.
As it turns out, nothing has changed during the season. In fact, it is now getting to the point where the NHL's continued drop in scoring is now starting to make it so 90 points might even be impossible to get to as the league's top scorers continue to score less than ever before.
With only a quarter of the season remaining, Chicago Blackhawks[2] forward Patrick Kane[3] is on pace to not only win the NHL's scoring title, but also reach the increasingly elusive 100-point mark. At this point he is the only player that has a chance to even come close to it as nobody else in the league is on pace to top even 90 points this season. Dallas Stars[4] forward Jamie Benn[5], currently the second-leading scorer in the NHL, is on pace for 87 points, which is the exact same total he had a year ago when he won the Art Ross Trophy with one of the lowest totals ever for a league scoring champion.
During the previous season only Sidney Crosby[6] topped the 90-point mark when he finished as the league's leading scorer with 104 points.
Assuming nobody else goes on a major run over the next couple of months to top the 90-point mark, that means the NHL is on pace to go on a three-year run where only two players in the league top 90 points.
That would simply be unprecedented in the modern era.
First, here's a look at the number of 90-point scorers in the NHL every year since 1980, including the projected total for this season (one). We also had to project the 1994-95 and 2012-13 totals because those were lockout shortened seasons.
Only two players with 90-points over a three-year run would be, by far, the worst-three year stretch over the past 35 years. The worst prior to that (one didn't include lockout seasons) since 1980 was when the league only had 11 90-point scorers between the 2001-02 and 2003-04 seasons, which was the height of the NHL's dead puck era.
In the 80s and early 90s it wasn't uncommon to see between 50 and 60 (and perhaps more) 90-point seasons over any three-year stretch.
It's not that the league is short on high-end talent today. With Alex Ovechkin[7], Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin[8], Steven Stamkos[9], Vladimir Tarasenko[10], Tyler Seguin[11], Patrick Kane, Jamie Benn, Claude Giroux[12] (just to name a few) there are plenty of players in the league that should be capable of putting up huge numbers that would rival what were put up in the 80s and early 90s.
But the style of play in the league just simply does not allow it.
It's the combination of goaltending being better than ever, the game being coached in a more structured defensive manner as everybody wants their top players to play a "200-foot game" and pack everything in between the dots defensively. And that doesn't even get into the fact power plays are also still near an all-time low.
Just consider that Jamie Benn is the second-leading scorer in the league over the past three years.
He has done that while never scoring more than 87 points in a season.
It is simply a different league when it comes to what the top players are capable of.
References
- ^ at the decline of the 100-point scorer in the NHL (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Chicago Blackhawks (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Patrick Kane (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Dallas Stars (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Jamie Benn (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Sidney Crosby (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Alex Ovechkin (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Evgeni Malkin (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Steven Stamkos (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Vladimir Tarasenko (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Tyler Seguin (www.cbssports.com)
- ^ Claude Giroux (www.cbssports.com)
