from Dominik Luszczyszyn of The Hockey News,

The 30-goal scorer is dead. At least, as we know it.

For a long time it’s been the barometer for an elite goal-scorer and it seems our expectations haven’t really changed even though the game has. Generally speaking, most fans are aware that scoring is way down, but it seems like a smaller portion of those fans understand the effects that has on our expectations for an elite player.

In the past, the 30-goal mark was pretty much the consensus level for a top-goal scorer. The same thing goes for the expectation that an elite player is usually around a point-per-game. For both marks, there’s not many of those guys left....

You could go on for days comparing eras, but what it all boils down to is our expectations of an elite player’s accomplishments have to be lowered from 30 goals and 80 points down to roughly 25 goals and 65 points. Those don’t sound too impressive, but it’s the new norm for the NHL.

The totals don’t matter, it’s how much better a player is from the rest of the league that matters. That’s the context that’s missing when people quote dated benchmarks for success. It’s important to understand that because without that context, we’ll just be disappointed again next season.

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