50, Magical or Common Place
Posted 5:52 PM ET | Comments 0
As the end of the season comes into sight it's time to start the speculation about awards. The one that I'm paying the most attention to isn't the Hart or the Vezina. Instead I look to the Rocket Richard Trophy this year. It seems to be a lock that Ovechkin is going to capture it this year barring no injuries but it's not so much the fact that he is going to win it's the amount of goals that he is going to have to win it. In the early 90's and the 80's it seemed it was easy to hit the 50 goal mark. Not being said that anyone could do it but at the start of the season it was expected that someone on your team would come up with a 50 goal performance. As the clutch and hold mid and late 90's came into place goals became harder to come by and 50 which was once so easy to predict became a myth. Gone were the days where games could get out of hand and installed was a brand of hockey were 1-0 was the norm and many fans were left wanting more. 40 goals became a LARGE feat and left where the old time fans who would tell you that back when they were young greats like Marcel Dionne, Mike Bossy and Kent Nilsson could put up 50 goals a season every year.
In the first year of the Rocket Richards inception into the league Selanne was the winner with a large 47 goals. The next year and the year after Pavel Bure seemed to be on a different level as he had amassed 59 and 58 goals, a large feat for a game that was just starting to bring the trap into common place for every team. The next year Iginla left everyone in the dust with a 52 goal performance and thus the trend continued until the last season before the lockout where 42 goals won the coveted award. After the warfare of the lockout had settled nearly everyone one was uncertain how the NHL would take off again. The truth is it has taken off stronger than any of the 10 seasons before it. Scoring is up and in a large way. As we stand this point in the season there is a total of 15 players with more than 30 goals. Once the season ends it seems that there could be a potential 8 50 goal scorers.
It would almost seem that the 50 mark that once seemed so mythical to players is a standard for them. If you want to be a superstar in this league you need to do 1 of 3 things for a forward. You need to either score 50 goals, get 100 points of be someone who can lead your team like the once so great Steve Yzerman. Once the final game is played I'm sure we can look back and say that Ovechkin had an amazing season but as the old time players continue to complain about the goalies now a day's its more than certain that the numbers will only continue to go up. I can't wait for when I too become one of those old time rink rats and I can sit back and tell everyone that I remember when I was young watching Kipper and Turco put up records for GAA and no one was able to score.
In the first year of the Rocket Richards inception into the league Selanne was the winner with a large 47 goals. The next year and the year after Pavel Bure seemed to be on a different level as he had amassed 59 and 58 goals, a large feat for a game that was just starting to bring the trap into common place for every team. The next year Iginla left everyone in the dust with a 52 goal performance and thus the trend continued until the last season before the lockout where 42 goals won the coveted award. After the warfare of the lockout had settled nearly everyone one was uncertain how the NHL would take off again. The truth is it has taken off stronger than any of the 10 seasons before it. Scoring is up and in a large way. As we stand this point in the season there is a total of 15 players with more than 30 goals. Once the season ends it seems that there could be a potential 8 50 goal scorers.
It would almost seem that the 50 mark that once seemed so mythical to players is a standard for them. If you want to be a superstar in this league you need to do 1 of 3 things for a forward. You need to either score 50 goals, get 100 points of be someone who can lead your team like the once so great Steve Yzerman. Once the final game is played I'm sure we can look back and say that Ovechkin had an amazing season but as the old time players continue to complain about the goalies now a day's its more than certain that the numbers will only continue to go up. I can't wait for when I too become one of those old time rink rats and I can sit back and tell everyone that I remember when I was young watching Kipper and Turco put up records for GAA and no one was able to score.