from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- Nathan MacKinnon could well serve as an example for Auston Matthews.

In MacKinnon’s first four NHL seasons, he averaged .68 points per season — in other words he was scoring at a pace of 56 points a season.

Then his career took off in Year 5.

Since then, MacKinnon, one of the early season favourites for the Hart Trophy as most valuable player in the NHL, has scored at a remarkable 1.3 points a game over the past three seasons. With this season being an explosion all its own....

- Remember when the analytics zealots were drooling all over Stan Bowman, saying the Chicago Blackhawks would not have won their three Stanley Cups without Bowman’s wise usage of advanced statistics? Funny, you don’t hear a word about that now that the Blackhawks are among the worst teams in the NHL. Must have been good stats then, bad stats now?

- Here’s the thing about Top 5 picks in the NHL Draft. You can’t afford to miss on one. You can’t afford to pick Nico Hischier as Ray Shero and New Jersey did when Miro Heiskanen, Cale Makar and Elias Pettersson were all available. Dallas, Colorado and Vancouver are all on the rise because it has Heiskanen, Makar and Pettersson: The Devils are a hot mess almost everywhere

- ... Wilson is one of the smartest GMs in the NHL: He’ll need to be to find a way out of the mess that time and circumstance has inflicted upon the Sharks.

more on the first and last topic above plus other hockey topics tossed in...