Top dogs

Let's walk away from the trade speculation for a short while and review the biggest point producers of late. The top of overall scoring list has very few surprises, both in and out. But lately there's been a few guys that have shown a reignited passion to break through to the scoring race.

Leading the pack is maybe the number one candidate for Art Ross trophy, Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin. He has a steady team to back him up and seems to love the spotlight while Sidney Crosby is out. Malkin is a monster in every aspect on the ice. Big, strong, shoots a lot and makes plays like the best of them. With confidence up, this guy is practically unstoppable. He seems also to possess somewhat unique ability to explode for 5 points every now and then (three times this season!). A feat not many have pulled out ever despite having tremendously successfull careers. Malkin is on a continuous hot streak with 6+8 in last ten games. A minus one rating is maybe a small dent in February.

Chasing Malkin is Tampa Bay's and the whole league's number one sniper, Steven Stamkos. This boy is on fire and is really aiming for the scoring title to go with his somewhat sure Rocket Richard trophy for most goals. Stamkos' shot is just phenomenal and it's going to be fun to watch this kid score for years to come. He might end up with a number in career goals column that only few can dream of. Last ten games he's gone through the roof with 9+7 and positive plus minus rating on a team that's going to fail to make it to the playoffs. Tough to beat.

The third kid on the top three is Philly's Claude Giroux. He's also only 24 and starts to fill all expectations set for him and more. He's been really consistent while the team has gone up and down throughout the season. January saw Giroux fall from the scoring lead but now he's back, making a statement that it won't be easy to walk over him on this one. Giroux has sort of sneaked into superstardom this season and it's really interesting to see if he really is this good. Malkin and Stamkos already have some silverware for memories. Giroux is 5+10 in the last ten games, but also falling to -3 to raise some questions.

Chasing these three kids we can see some slightly more experienced guys with rising productivity. Ottawa's Jason Spezza is really on fire with 8+9 in last ten and has brought the surprising Senators to almost sure playoff spot with his heroics. Some praise must be thrown to amazing young blueliner Erik Karlsson for coming up with massive offensive numbers to complement Spezza's feats.

Another late season blast comes from New Jersey in form of always so thrilling Ilya Kovalchuk. He's got the most points in the last ten in the league if you don't count Edmonton's Sam Gagner and his 8 point night. 6+12 and counting for Ilya, and he's stepped it up on even strength too to rack up +5 during the stretch. Spending 100M on this guy may feel just a little bit less painful for the ownership when Kovalchuk is on this mode. The dude is one of the fastest out there and sized like a bull. Throw in his shot that pales to no one and this is what you should expect. Hopefully Devils can keep Parise and Elias to set Kovy up also in the future.

Some of the all season top ten guys seem to have run out of steam a bit.. well if you can call point per game that. There's Toronto's wonder pair Kessel-Lupul and Vancouver's identically scoring Sedin twins. Steadily following also Mr. Selke, Pavel Datsuyk and Buffalo's brightest star, Jason Pominville. All of these are still within a striking distance, should the big guns relax a little.

It'll be extremely tight this year and the big prize seems to fall for one of the young bucks. Hurray for modern NHL and skill hockey.