The race for the NHL’s MVP is closer than in a long time.
Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon is currently the frontrunner when looking at the betting odds, but many have also named the Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov as a possible winner.
Of course, Connor McDavid is in the mix, looking to reach 100 assists for the first time in his career. And then there’s Auston Matthews.
The Toronto Maple Leafs superstar leads the NHL in goals with 69. He’s only sixth in points with 107, but he has 14 goals more than second-placed Sam Reinhart in the goal-scoring chart.
And in former NHLer Paul Bissonnette’s mind, there’s no doubt that Matthews, with his record-breaking scoring this season, deserves to be names the league’s MVP.
”I think Auston Matthews has slowly crept up, where people maybe from the point production standpoint wouldn’t take him as seriously as MacKinnon and Kucherov,” Bissonnette said on TNT. ”But, when’s the last time a guy has scored 50 five-on-five goals? What he is doing five on five and the way that he plays defensively, to put up these types of numbers … if he hits 70 I think that he truly has to be considered for the MVP…
”The last time there’s been this much separation to the second guy in goals scored has been 24 years. What he’s doing in the goal-scoring department is remarkable, it happens every few decades, so I think right now I could legitimately say it’s a three-way tie for the MVP,” Bissonnette continued.
Auston Matthews is now looking to become the first player to reach 70 goals since Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne did it in the 1992-93 season.
If Matthews managed to score one goal in Toronto’s last two games and, therefore, reach the 70-goal mark, Bissonnette feels Matthews deserves the Hart.
And apparently, BizNasty has been asked to be a vote in the NHL’s voting, but he declined.
”I got asked to vote, but I declined it,” he said.
”I was like, ’this is too confusing to me, I’m going to throw it over to the other side. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, and I actually don’t the answer.”
