Everyone loves a good old fashioned scoring race, and the 2016-17 campaign has gifted fans a fantastic one: young phenom Connor McDavid leading the pack, trailed closely by the league's current king, Sidney Crosby, and last year's scoring champ, Patrick Kane.
But the scoring race doesn't necessarily illustrate who exactly the best pure scorers in the game are. Injury and general misfortune play a role, of course, taking certain potential front-runners out of the conversation, but there's also the matter of what exactly gets counted in the standard point totals.
Should secondary assists be included in that bunch?
The value of counting secondary helpers varies from play to play, with some marking a key aspect of a goal's playmaking origin, and some representing far less impressive contributions.
Taking them out of the mix entirely may be a bit drastic, but if we're looking to pin down the top offensive talents in the game, pointing to primary scoring - counting goals plus primary assists only - might be a better route.
That said, let's take a look at how this season's top 10 overall scorers stack up against the top 10 primary scorers:
| Player | Overall Points | Player | Primary Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Connor McDavid | 91 | 1. Sidney Crosby | 68 |
| 2. Patrick Kane | 84 | 2. Connor McDavid | 67 |
| 3. Brad Marchand | 83 | 3. Nikita Kucherov | 64 |
| 4. Sidney Crosby | 82 | 4. Patrick Kane | 64 |
| 5. Nicklas Backstrom | 82 | 5. Brad Marchand | 60 |
| 6. Nikita Kucherov | 80 | 6. Evgeni Malkin | 60 |
| 7. Mark Scheifele | 78 | 7. Auston Matthews | 55 |
| 8. Brent Burns | 73 | 8. Leon Draisaitl | 55 |
| 9. Evgeni Malkin | 72 | 9. Mikael Granlund | 55 |
| 10. Leon Draisaitl | 72 | 10. Brent Burns | 54 |
Among the top two names in the game, not much changes - Crosby and McDavid remain roughly level, each having a chance at claiming No.1 honors before the season is through.
A few notable names jump slightly higher - Nikita Kucherov moves up to tie Kane at third and Evgeni Malkin climbs to sixth despite playing far fewer games than the rest of the top 10 - but the biggest surprise is in the latter half of the primary scorers list.
Toronto Maple Leafs rookie Auston Matthews, who's already setting records for his new club, rises significantly. Ranking as low as 27th in the league on the traditional scoring list, Matthews reigns as the seventh-best in the league thus far in terms of goals and primary setups.
Minnesota Wild pivot Mikael Granlund is a similar story, ranking 16th in overall scoring but moving up to tie Matthews and Leon Draisaitl at seventh if secondary assists are taken out of the equation.
We can't entirely discount secondary helpers, as there are certainly cases in which the success of a particular play hinges on that less direct assist.
But boiling it down to what undeniably counts - goals and the immediate setup passes that precede them - seems to paint a much clearer picture of who's carrying the offensive mail for their clubs.
Apparently, in many cases, it's the young guns.
(All statistics courtesy: Corsica)
Copyright © 2017 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.