Is this the year that the best 40 G scorer not to score 40 finally gets 40 goals?

With Lupul and Kulemin out, Kessel's chances get a little worse, as the offensive threats are thinned (not that Kulemin has been much of a threat this year...). But I think he'll still do it. If he doesn't pot his next one within the next three to four games, it's going to start looking bad, but overall, I'd say that he's got more than enough games left. He may even be more motivated to do it playing the spoiler.

BQ-- I don't think it's very important. Obviously, you can't win without scoring goals, but a lot of Western Conference teams have had great playoff success with a balanced scoring attack rather than having a big-time sniper. I mean, the best sniper in the Central is arguably Rick Nash, meanwhile the best three teams in that division don't really have one (yeah, Zetterburg and Datsyuk CAN snipe, but they are more well-rounded players generally and imo don't really fit neatly into that category). I could potentially see a team like Nashville or St Louis smothering a high-flying offense like that of the Pens or Flyers to death in the SCF. One sniper, like a Gaborik, Jagr, Neal, etc, probably couldn't make much of a dent--it'd take three balanced lines of potential scoring threats to overcome them, which both the Pens and Flyers DO have, while the Rangers don't (just for example). Obviously, the best sniper in the game right now, Stamkos, can't make up for his team's terrible D and goaltending.

Leafs Fan....if e Leafs had Price then they would still be out of the playoffs and his numbers would be much worse. Much of a SV% is a direct reflection of a goalie's teammates and usually his defence.

Brian Eliott had SV% under .900 the last 2 seasons with different teams....credit the team and Hitchcock's defensive system. Ditto Mike Smith...he STUNK in TB....just as Eliott or Smith would stink in Toronto. Kind of like Toskala's Save% taking a dip during his tenure in Toronto...not entirely the goaltender.

Sabermetrics and corsi are overrated to a degree. You will talk about Phaneuf's attributes based on this but over the past few years, he has been on the ice for as many opposing goals as just about anyone and people should just trust their eyes to judge play more than pure stats.

Kessel is one dimensional. He scores some goals. He is not good in the dressing room. He isn't a winner. He's a bum.

Hello Cdn fan. Hope all is well.

How can he be the best 40 goal scorer, yet he's never gotten 40 goals ever before in his career? That is an oxymoron.

I say he ends up with 39 so this confusion can go on forever.

BQ: I say it puts you in better contention to win games, however it does not seem to matter if you have a top 5 sniper as long as your team is scoring goals, and winning games. There is no exact formula for winning, but the end result is always the same: Having more goals on the board than the other team at games end.

It's important (hockey is, after all, a goal-scoring contest), but it's also important to have goaltending that isn't horrible.

TBL's goaltending blows (last year Roloson was outstanding).

PIT gets decent goaltending from Fleury and has serviceable backups in Johnson and Thiessen.

STL gets great goaltending (Halak and Elliott have been outstanding).

Put it this way- if MTL and TOR swapped goaltenders (going off SPCT) the Leafs are a playoff team and MTL is probably worse than CBJ and wins the Fail for Nail sweepstakes. Pythagorean math and expected points regression (using goal differential which is easily the single biggest predictor) bears this out.

I don't think that kessel will get to 40. Overall, I like Kessel but with the Leafs playing so poorly I'm just not sure he can do it. I think having a balanced attack is really what is important.

Your stats here are interesting for sure. I'm not sure I'm sold on St. Louis yet. I could honestly see them going out in the first round. To me, they seem like a group of overachieving average players. That being said, I don't follow them closely.

Snipers aren't as important if you have great goaltending and/or good setup men.

Vancouver is in 2nd with great passing and good enough goaltending

Detroit has Datsyuk, but he is a great two-way player more than a sniper. They play puck control and it works for them.

New York has a sniper in Gaborik, though, and IMO it can't really hurt to have a good sniper.

He might but i bet Hartnell gets to 40 before him

While a sniper is nice to have he cant win by himself...well rounded team win the Cup...Snipers or no Snipers