from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- The Leafs' fortunes change immediately should the team get fortunate, draft Matthews and sign free agent Steven Stamkos. Without either move, the rebuild is a slow build.

- This is why hockey analytics makes me scream or laugh: An advocate named Stephen Burtch asserted online that Martin Marincin can be a top-pairing NHL defenceman. What statistics can’t quantify is a defenceman’s ability to think, read and react. If you can’t think the game at a high level, you can’t play defence at a high level.

- Of the NHL's all-time top-30 points-per-game scorers, Kent Nilsson (9th) and Eric Lindros (19th) are the only retired players not in the Hall of Fame. The only active players on the list are Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin and Jaromir Jagr.

- I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but sometimes it’s easy to put aside just how special Sidney Crosby has been through his 11 NHL seasons and take his accomplishments for granted.

As Patrick Kane runs away with the scoring title and is quite likely the Hart Trophy winner, we are momentarily astounded by his ability to score at 1.29 points per game and probably become the only 100-point scorer this season.

He regularly creates offence in an NHL starving for both offence and creativity. And this is Kane’s fourth straight season in which he’s averaged more than a point a game, fifth in the last six years. Impressive on almost any scale.

more on the Crosby/Kane bit and other topics too...