Even just a cursory glance at the top of the NHL’s scoring leaderboard paints the picture of some fairly incredible stories taking place around the league this season. There’s Edmonton’s dynamic duo leading the way. There’s Alex Ovechkin turning back the clock and scoring at a pace that has many convinced he will one day break Gretzky’s record. There’s Nazem Kadri coming out of nowhere. And, then, there’s Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos.

Through just 25 games this year, Stamkos has potted 13 goals and 32 points. That puts him on a 100-plus point pace to start the year, which is especially impressive considering all the injury woes he’s had to battle back from over the course of the last decade. When you add the context that he’s coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup wins as Captain, the fact that there’s still an obvious hunger to perform at such a high level speaks very well of his character and leadership.

While there’s still obviously miles left in the race, my thesis is this: Stamkos’ performance to date this year puts him in the Hart Trophy conversation as the league’s most valuable player. For a Lightning team that lost so much depth during the offseason, and that then lost both Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point during the season for an extended period, Stamkos’ play and contributions have been more than just important. They’ve been absolutely essential to this group’s success.

Some will be quick to point out that Stamkos’ 32 points this year rank well behind Leon Draisaitl's and Connor McDavid’s 45, or Alex Ovechkin’s 43, but adjusting those totals for time on ice paints a more comparable story. Stamkos averages between three and five minutes fewer per game than each of those players, which brings the P/60 numbers into much closer proximity. The gap between Stamkos and McDavid, the highest ranked of those players, is just 0.53 points per 60 minutes of ice time as calculated by Natural Stat Trick.

And, whereas each of McDavid, Draisaitl, and Ovechkin have the luxury of being flanked by at least one point-per-game player among their two most common forward linemates, Stamkos’ most common forward linemates are Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn. As good and underrated as those players are, they simply aren’t the same as McDavid to Draisaitl or Draisaitl to McDavid or Evgeny Kuznetsov to Ovechkin.

I’m not necessarily prepared to call him the Hart favorite at this juncture, but it’s certainly not a stretch to say that he belongs in the conversation. The bottom line is that Stamkos has taken a hollowed Lightning forward group, put it on his back, and carried it to a very respectable record in the Atlantic Division. Having one of the league’s best goaltenders and defencemen behind him might hurt the MVP cause, but it shouldn’t take away from the stellar story that Stamkos is writing for himself this season.

As always, thanks for reading.

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