All eyes have been on Auston Matthews these days, and there are 58 (so far) reasons for that. But, as this weekend highlighted, there are other high-end players — all at different spots in their own careers — who deserve some shine, too. (Dixononsports)
It was classic best-fourth-liner-in-the-NHL Crosby, coming in hard on the forecheck and stripping the puck away from Mikael Granlund to start a play that ended with No. 87 re-directing home a nice feed from Rickard Rakell for his second tally of the day.
Kaprizov scored in both games he played on the weekend, giving him goals in three straight contests, 10 in his past 10 and 42 on the year. He’s on pace for 49 this season and if he gets there, he’ll have the third-best single-campaign goal total for a fifth-round pick in NHL history, trailing only the 76- and 55-goal years put up by his countryman, Alex Mogilny. Since March 16, Kaprizov has 12 tallies, just one fewer than Matthews.
Matthews is the man, no doubt. These three men, though, have scored their way into any conversation you want to have right now about the most dangerous players on skates.• Just a quick note to acknowledge that, while he was held off the scoresheet in two weekend contests, you can’t talk about crooked numbers these days without mentioning Nashville’s Roman Josi. Since March 2,DEFENCEMAN is tied for the league scoring lead with Matthews at 34 points.