Mailbag: Draisaitl making early Hart case, impact players on trade block

Here is the Dec. 1 edition of the mailbag, where we answer your questions asked on Twitter using #OvertheBoards. Tweet your questions to @drosennhl.

If the vote was today, who would be the Hart Trophy winner this year? Leon Draisaitl, who even outscores Connor McDavid? McDavid as the best player in the League? Or Alex Ovechkin helping an injured Washington Capitals team to the top of the division? -- @MeierGilles
Our
Hart Trophy tracker
for NHL MVP at the quarter-mark of the season came out Wednesday.
You'll see that McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers captain, is the favorite with 69 voting points and eight of the 17 first-place votes. I wrote the story and was one of the two voters who picked Draisaitl, McDavid's linemate, as the top choice.
Draisaitl has scored more points (40), more goals (20) and more points per game (2.00) than anyone in the NHL. He plays more minutes per game (23:00) than any other forward. He's playing part time on the penalty kill (48 seconds per game). Draisaitl is also winning 56.1 percent of his face-offs, 66.3 percent on the power play (55-for-83). McDavid has taken two face-offs on the power play all season, winning one. Draisaitl has taken 170 more than McDavid and he's winning a higher percentage. McDavid is at 54.9 percent.
All things being equal, I've argued here and on the "NHL @TheRink" podcast that McDavid is a better and more talented player, though it's close. I think Draisaitl benefits from McDavid's unique ability to make plays while going at such a high rate of speed more than McDavid benefits from Draisaitl. But this season it's hard to argue against Draisaitl being the most valuable player because all his metrics are better than McDavid's, and for that matter just about everyone else who would be under consideration too.

Now that Jack Eichel has been traded, who is the most impactful player on the trading block? -- @jreinitzesq
At this point we have to look at potential rental options like Arizona Coyotes forward Phil Kessel and Chicago Blackhawks goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Each is in the final year of his contract, a pending unrestricted free agent and a Stanley Cup champion, and it's hard to fathom either finishing the season with his current team with the way things are going. The Blackhawks (7-12-2) are seventh in the Central Division, second to last in front of the Coyotes (5-15-2).
Kessel would bring a no-nonsense, guaranteed scoring presence to any top-nine forward group. He wouldn't have to play a top-six role and would make any third line more dangerous. That's what he did for the Penguins when they won the Stanley Cup in 2016 with the "HBK Line" of Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino and Kessel. The Tampa Bay Lightning won the Cup the past two seasons with Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and Yanni Gourde as their third line. It was arguably their best line at even strength in either run.
Fleury's addition is obvious for any team that wants to bolster its goaltending for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Getting the reigning Vezina Trophy winner would be the equivalent of when the Vegas Golden Knights acquired Robin Lehner to team with Fleury prior to the 2020 NHL Trade Deadline. Lehner was a rental at the time, like Fleury would be this season, but eventually signed a five-year, $25 million contract with the Golden Knights.
Would the Philadelphia Flyers trade their captain, forward Claude Giroux, if they fall out of the playoff race? Giroux is in the final season of an eight-year contract. The same question holds for the Seattle Kraken and their captain, defenseman Mark Giordano, who is 38 years old and a pending unrestricted free agent. Is Tomas Hertl's future with the San Jose Sharks? If not, the Sharks have to be in the playoff race for them to hold onto the pending unrestricted free agent forward. Nick Leddy could be a quality addition if the Detroit Red Wings plan to trade the pending unrestricted free agent defenseman. The New York Islanders, Leddy's former team, sorely miss his skating. Reilly Smith is a pending unrestricted free agent, and the Golden Knights will have to fit Eichel under the NHL salary cap when he's ready to play, which could make Smith expendable. Ben Chiarot is an intriguing pending unrestricted free agent defenseman whom the Montreal Canadiens might be inclined to move before the deadline.

Now that Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty have returned are the Golden Knights favorites to win the Stanley Cup? Do you think they are still missing a piece? What will they do if this Eichel trade doesn't work? -- @theashcity
The Golden Knights are a prime example of a team that just has to get into the playoffs to be dangerous. Assuming Eichel joins the lineup after the Olympic break in February, he'll have two months to get used to playing with his new teammates and vice versa. That's more than enough time to figure out chemistry, line combinations, power-play positions and the like. It was a challenging first quarter of the season for the Golden Knights (12-9-0) because of their inconsistent play and lineup, a result of injuries and/or NHL COVID-19 protocol absences that impacted Pacioretty (missed 17 games), forward William Karlsson (13), Stone (12), defenseman Alec Martinez (seven) and forward Jonathan Marchessault (five). But they're right there in the Pacific Division with the Oilers and Calgary Flames, and I have more questions about the sustainability of the Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings than I do about Vegas.
The biggest question for the Golden Knights is their power play. It's scoring at 10.6 percent, better than only the Islanders (10.2 percent). According to NHL Stats, the Golden Knights have scored one goal on 20 shots from the low slot and none on four shots from the high slot. They have missed the net on 12 of their 16 shot attempts from the high slot.
Eichel will help, and consistently having Stone and Pacioretty will help. We won't know how good the power play can be until all three are regulars on the top unit with forward Evgenii Dadonov and defenseman Shea Theodore. The Golden Knights have the talent to put a solid second group together that would be quarterbacked by defenseman Alex Pietrangelo. However, it is alarming because we're not talking about a small sample size. The Vegas power play (0-for-15 in six games) was arguably the biggest reason it lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Semifinals last season. The Golden Knights are at 17.4 percent in 99 regular-season games and 14.7 percent in 39 playoff games since Peter DeBoer took over as coach Jan. 15, 2020. But they also have never had a center with Eichel's talent. That changes in a few months, and it could be the missing piece that brings the power play together.

Should there be a ban on skaters leaving their feet to block shots? Call it diving, unsportsmanlike, illegal blocking, whatever. Two minutes or four minutes if it happens in the crease. If you want to stand up straight and get in the way fine, but a penalty for anything else. -- @JasonJarry
Bob Gainey had this idea more than a decade ago when he was Canadiens general manager. I'm not a fan. Shot blocking is an integral part of playing defense. I find it intriguing when a player is willing to toss his body in front of a slap shot to help his team. It's a daredevil part of the game and I love it. Shooters should take note of players diving in front of shots and fake, so they slide by, opening a passing or shooting lane. If a player wants to dive for a block, he shouldn't be penalized for it.
Imagine handing out a penalty for illegal blocking in overtime of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Are we really in favor of a Cup-clinching goal scored on a power play awarded because a player was aggressively trying to help his team by sacrificing himself to block a shot even if it meant taking the puck to the face? I'm not. That might sound extreme, but add a penalty to it and that's the kind of unintended consequence you must contemplate.
Who are your surprise Olympic picks for Canada, USA and Sweden (if the NHL goes)? -- @JonathanNJayne1
For Canada, I'm eyeing Colorado Avalanche forward Nazem Kadri, the second-leading Canada-born scorer (27 points; seven goals, 20 assists) behind McDavid this season. For the United States, it's Ducks forward Troy Terry. It could be tough to get Terry to the 2022 Beijing Olympics if he wasn't on USA Hockey's long list of Olympic hopefuls that it submitted to the International Ice Hockey Federation prior to the start of the season. Players on the long list have been getting randomly drug tested for the past few months. USA Hockey would have to petition the IIHF to have Terry added.
For Sweden, it's Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond, but it could be the same situation as Terry. Raymond is an early favorite for the Calder Trophy given to the NHL rookie of the year and one of the top Sweden-born forwards in the NHL.