With the first overall pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, the Tampa Bay Lightning selected Steven Stamkos and immediately started marketing the kid as the second coming of Sidney Crosby. A look at his rookie stats will clearly show that this didn’t materialize as they had expected or hoped; at least the first 53 games of his professional career didn’t.
Stamkos failed to come into the NHL with a bang, in fact he
was stymied to get anything consistent going for the first four and half months
of the season. Coming off of nearly 60
goals in his last season with Sarnia of the OHL, it must have been more than a
little frustrating to only manage seven goals in those first 53 games of his
professional career (he chipped in 15 helpers over this span). But on February 17th, against a
top Western Conference club in Chicago, Stamkos recorded a natural hat trick
and looked to be a different player from that moment on. He hasn’t looked back, and no one predicted
this production jump or anything remotely close.
In the 93 games he has played since his first three-goal performance, Stamkos has notched 57 goals, including the 42 he has to date in this season – his coming out party. This isn’t news to anyone watching the NHL or playing fantasy hockey, so where am I going with this? Well, there is someone to keep an eye on for next season that could celebrate his own stellar sophomore year.
Is it former first overall John Tavares? Budding power forward Evander Kane? While I would expect both these kids to take steps forward next season, the best bet for a major surge forward will come from surprising centre Matt Duchene – the current rookie scoring leader.
There are a number of similarities between the stat cards
these two players keep, including tremendous OHL careers. Though Stamkos was clearly putting up the
more impressive numbers in Sarnia (92 points in 2006-07 and 105 in 2007-08),
Duchene was a huge part of a successful team in Brampton, which included 21
points (14G, 12A) in 21 playoff games in 2007-08.
Duchene also found it hard to get going, though he kicked it up a notch after 25 games (3G, 7A) when he went on to score five goals in three games. There are still gaps in his scoring, but with 71 contests under his belt, Duchene has already recorded 10 multi-point games, including a pair of three-point nights. Stamkos? He had only seven multi-point games and his hat trick was the only time he punched in three points in a game that rookie season.
Both Stamkos and Duchene have elite playmakers to get them the puck; Martin St. Louis in Tampa Bay and Paul Stastny in Colorado, both of whom have over 50 assists this year. While St. Louis’ future with the team is unclear past the 2010-11 season, Duchene will be paired with Stastny for the foreseeable future and that future is very bright indeed.
So while everyone is clambering all over each other to draft Tavares who will have Kyle Okposo and his 30-odd assists to feed him the puck, sit back and grab the emerging superstar from an elite tandem in Matt Duchene.
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