Not Again, When Will The Story Change?

BY GREG BUCHANAN

If you thought being a Toronto Maple Leaf’s fan is tough, being an Edmonton Oilers supporter may be even harder right now. The Toronto Maple Leaf’s fans were elated when Auston Matthews won his first career Hart Trophy last year, but once the awards are handed out for this season, an Edmonton Oilers player will have won that same award four times in the past seven years.

If you have the best player in the world on your team four out of seven years, you should probably advance to a Stanley Cup Final once, however hockey is a weird sport. As shown by the Oilers over the past few years, you can have the best player(s) in the world, performing their best and it still may not lead to victory. At the end of the day, you still need a hot goalie, or you need a few bounces to go your way. It’s not like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl underperformed in the playoffs. In fact, Draisaitl played some of the best hockey we’ve ever seen him play this postseason and it still wasn’t enough.

So, if you’re the Oilers, you’re not going to trade Draisaitl or McDavid, even though the team never advanced because that would be crazy. When you have players of that talent, you don’t just ship them away because how in the world are you ever going to replace them? The Toronto Maple Leaf’s are in a very similar situation as the Edmonton Oilers. They have a Hart Trophy winner on their team, and they still can’t win. However, if you look at the history of the NHL, that should change one of these years.

In the 100 year-plus history of the Hart Trophy Award, only five players who have won this award have never made it to a Stanley Cup Final in their career and all five of those examples are recent. They include Jose Theodore, Taylor Hall, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews.

Essentially if you a have Hart Trophy winner on your team, you should eventually make it to the Stanley Cup Final. Makes total sense, right?

If you were to tell an NHL fan that McDavid or Matthews will never make a Stanley Cup Final in their career, that person would probably tell you that you were off your rocker.  The best players in the world can’t win every single year so one of these years, odds are pretty good that they will eventually break through to win The Stanley Cup.

However, the biggest question with this scenario is this. Will McDavid win it as a member of the Oilers or will Matthews achieve it with the Toronto? It may take a change of scenery for either player to reach a Stanley Cup Final, but if history has shown us anything, when you keep a Hart Trophy winner on your team, you will eventually get there. You may have to change the pieces around them, but having one of these award winners eventually translates into playoff success. I know we’re all frustrated, and we should be, but one of these years, Auston and Connor will reach the Stanley Cup Final.