NHL Players Most Likely to Heat Up in Final Months of the Season
It's crunch time.
Now that the All-Star break is in the books, games will heat up around the NHL as teams make their pushes for playoff positions. This year's stretch run should be especially exciting with so many teams bunched together in the standings—at this point, only the Arizona Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche are truly out of the playoff race.
We're starting to see some of the superstars around the league pick up their games, and there's a good chance that some other big-name players won't be far behind as the stakes get higher.
Expect to see a lot of these six forwards and two goaltenders in the nightly highlight packages over the last nine weeks of the 2016-17 NHL season.
Jonathan Toews: Chicago Blackhawks
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Career Stats and Achievements: 689 GP, 260-333-593, three Stanley Cups, 2012-13 Selke Trophy, 2009-10 Conn Smythe Trophy
2016-17 Stats: 44 GP, 9-20-29
Why He'll Heat Up: In his nine previous NHL seasons, including the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign, Jonathan Toews has never scored fewer than 23 goals. He's currently on pace for just 15 goals.
The perennial Selke finalist as one of the league's best two-way forwards is also currently in previously uncharted plus-minus territory, with a minus-one.
Over the course of his career, Toews has scored on 14.6 percent of his shots. This year, he's succeeding just 7.8 percent of the time—a number that's strongly affected by luck and is bound to improve before the end of the season.
Toews showed a glimpse of the dominant player he can be when he put up a goal and three assists in the Chicago Blackhawks' 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks back on January 22. The Blackhawks are currently comfortably ensconced in the second place in the Central Division, so they should have an easy path to the playoffs.
Expect the wily Toews to start fine-tuning his game over the last two months of the season with an eye toward playing his best hockey once the postseason begins.
Alexander Ovechkin: Washington Capitals
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Career Stats and Achievements: 890 GP, 550-463-1,013, six Rocket Richard Trophies, three Hart Trophies, three Lester B. Pearson Awards, 2005-06 Calder Trophy, 2007-08 Art Ross Trophy
2016-17 Stats: 51 GP, 25-22-47
Why He'll Heat Up: Sniper Alex Ovechkin has won the NHL's last four Rocket Richard trophies as the NHL's top goal scorer, but he seems to come from behind every year to capture the award.
This year looks like it'll be no different. Ovi is starting to pick up the pace and is currently riding a three-game scoring streak for the first time since the early stages of the season.
Ovechkin has scored at least 50 goals and fired at least 386 shots in each of the last three seasons. His current pace for 2016-17 puts him on pace for 40 goals and 317 shots, so he should get rolling any time.
It won't be long before Ovechkin makes up the three goals he needs to catch Sidney Crosby at the top of the scoring race and make the charge we've seen before—this time for his seventh career Rocket Richard trophy.
Anze Kopitar: Los Angeles Kings
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Career Stats and Achievements: 809 GP, 249-466-715, two-time Stanley Cup champion, 2015-16 Selke Trophy
2016-17 Stats: 45 GP, 6-25-31
Why He'll Heat Up: So far this season, the Los Angeles Kings offense has been almost exclusively fuelled by Jeff Carter. The Kings currently rank 23rd in the league with 130 goals scored—and 26 of them have come off the stick of Carter. That's a mind-boggling 20 percent.
Carter's hot hands have helped cover up for the fact that the Kings' other elite center, Anze Kopitar, is not carrying his share of the scoring load. Kopitar's primary calling card is his two-way play, which is why he's the reigning Selke Trophy holder, but he's also an eight-time 20-goal scorer who was near the top of his game with 25 goals and 74 points last season.
Like Jonathan Toews, Kopitar's shooting percentage this season is extraordinarily low—6.5 percent, compared to an average of 12.1 percent over his career and 14.1 percent accuracy last season.
Currently on a four-game winning streak, the Kings are starting to make their move toward a Western Conference playoff position, and the team should start delivering even better results once starting goaltender Jonathan Quick gets back into the lineup after his lengthy injury layoff.
Quick's return may help relieve Kopitar of some of the defensive burden that he has been shouldering this season. That means we'll see him chipping in more key goals as the countdown to the playoffs amps up in earnest.
Jaromir Jagr: Florida Panthers
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Career Stats and Achievements: 1,680 GP, 758-1,139-1,897, two-time Stanley Cup champion, five Art Ross Trophies, three Pearson Trophies, 1998-99 Hart Trophy, 2015-16 Masterton Trophy
2016-17 Stats: 51 GP, 9-20-29
Why He'll Heat Up: After leading the Florida Panthers in scoring with 66 points in 2015-16, ageless wonder Jaromir Jagr hasn't been as effective in putting points on the board this season.
Expect that to change over the next two months. Not only are the Panthers in the thick of an intense Eastern Conference playoff race, Jagr has finally been reunited with the young linemates who helped fuel his success last season.
Jonathan Huberdeau and Aleksander Barkov both returned to the Florida lineup February 3—Huberdeau, for the first time all season and Barkov after missing 15 games with a back injury. The trio was instantly reunited, though Jagr was in the penalty box serving a tripping penalty when Barkov set up Huberdeau for the Panthers' winning goal at four-on-four against the Anaheim Ducks.
Expect to see Jagr start putting up points again now that he's back at work with his talented linemates.
Patrick Marleau: San Jose Sharks
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Career Stats and Achievements: 1,463 GP, 500-564-1,064
2016-17 Stats: 52 GP, 19-9-28
Why He'll Heat Up: Speaking of veteran players, 37-year-old Patrick Marleau is smack in the middle of an offensive resurgence.
Marleau scored his 500th career goal against the Vancouver Canucks on February 2. That's an impressive achievement on its own, but it's also his seventh goal in his last five games—a hot stretch that was kicked off by four goals in one period against the Colorado Avalanche on January 23.
Marleau's now up to 19 goals on the season—second on his team behind the amazing Brent Burns (22) and tied for 21st in the entire NHL.
The Sharks look like they have every intention of trying to book a return trip to the Stanley Cup Final after making their first appearance in franchise history last season.
Marleau's currently in the last year of a lucrative contract that carries a cap hit of $6.67 million, according to CapFriendly. Right now, he's earning every penny—and making a solid case that he'll deserve another big-money deal when he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer.
John Tavares: New York Islanders
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Career Stats and Achievements: 559 GP, 227-287-514
2016-17 Stats: 49 GP, 20-23-43
Why He'll Heat Up: John Tavares missed out on sharing the 2014-15 Art Ross Trophy by a single point, but he seemed to be sleepwalking through the first three months of the current New York Islanders' season. Tavares put up just 11 goals and 27 points in 36 games through the end of December, well below his typical level of production.
Tavares' scoring started to pick up earlier in January and has spiked noticeably since Doug Weight replaced Jack Capuano as the Islanders' head coach on January 17. Since Weight took over, New York has strung together a 5-1-1 record. Tavares has contributed four goals and 11 points in those seven games, which has moved him up the ranks to No. 27 overall in NHL scoring.
The Islanders' success under Weight has moved the team out of the Eastern Conference basement—it's now within five points of a wild-card playoff spot.
Tavares will earn plenty of praise if he can lead his team back to the postseason for a second straight year after such a lacklustre first half.
Pekka Rinne: Nashville Predators
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Career Stats and Achievements: 486 GP, 258-149-59, .918 save percentage, 2.37 goals-against average, 42 shutouts
2016-17 Stats: 39 GP, 20-13-6, .922 save percentage, 2.34 goals-against average, two shutouts
Why He'll Heat Up: Like Marleau and Tavares, goaltender Pekka Rinne is also rounding into form. The 34-year-old got off to a rough 1-4 start in the month of October, then followed up a hot November with a shaky December.
The Nashville Predators started their playoff push as the calendar flipped to 2017. The team is 9-4-2 since January 1, and Rinne has been a big part of the team's success with a 7-3-1 record and a stingy 21 goals allowed in those 11 games.
Rinne's stats for this season are now better than his career averages, and the Predators have vaulted over the Western Conference wild-card teams and into third place in the Central Division.
More strong goaltending will be crucial if Nashville hopes to keep the St. Louis Blues at bay and lock down that third seed at playoff time.
Carey Price: Montreal Canadiens
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Career Stats and Achievements: 486 GP, 256-166-55, .920 save percentage, 2.42 goals-against average, 38 shutouts, 2014-15 Hart Trophy, 2014-15 Vezina Trophy, 2014-15 Jennings Trophy, 2014-15 Pearson Trophy
2016-17 Stats: 39 GP, 23-11-5, .922 save percentage, 2.33 goals-against average, two shutouts
Why He'll Heat Up: Carey Price was a fifth overall draft pick in 2005, while Pekka Rinne was an eighth-round selection in 2004. Their pedigrees are wildly different—and Rinne is nearly five years older—but the career paths of the two netminders have reached a junction.
Both have played the same number of games, and the two have eerily similar statistics, this season and over the course of their careers. Price has more individual hardware, of course, thanks to his standout campaign in 2014-15, but the desired endgame for both players will be the same—take that next step and reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time.
After Price appeared in just 12 games during the 2015-16 season, Montreal Canadiens fans are happy to see their team MVP carrying a steady workload now that he's back in action. His numbers aren't as otherworldly as they were before he was hurt (44 wins, a 1.96 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage in 2014-15), but Price is doing enough to keep his team comfortably atop the Atlantic Division while stockpiling some energy for the gruelling playoff run that he hopes will lie ahead.
Expect to see Price's consistency improve over the last two months of the season—and look for more of his patented highlight-reel saves in the late-night sports wrap-ups, too. With his methodical approach, Price will be working toward dialling in his A-game just in time for the playoffs to begin.
All stats courtesy of NHL.com, current through games completed Friday, February 3. Award information from Hockey Reference.
