Chicago Blackhawks: Should Patrick Kane be the MVP if they make playoffs?

With the Chicago Blackhawks still in playoff contention, should Patrick Kane get MVP consideration?

It has been an overall very disappointing season for the Chicago Blackhawks. A season where upper management believed would end in the postseason, even if most fans and outside media believed differently. So far, not so good for Chicago.

Not long into the season, the Blackhawks decided to go the route of firing their legendary coach Joel Quenneville. Coach Q led Chicago to three Stanley Cups in his tenure, along with an extra two appearances in the Western Conference Final.

Jeremy Colliton, formerly the head coach of Chicago’s AHL affiliate the Rockford Ice Hogs, was named the head coach of the Blackhawks. Things didn’t go their way right away after the change, but lately, things have been on the rise.

The reason it has been on the rise is the play of superstar Patrick Kane. So far this season, Kane has 24 goals and 34 assists for 58 points in 44 games played. He is on pace for 43 goals, and 104 points, which is very similar production to his 2015-16 season, in which Kane captured the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player.

As of right now, Chicago finds themselves only six points out of the final Wild Card berth in the Western Conference. A lot of that has to do with the raised level in Patrick Kane’s play. If the Hawks were able to climb all the way back and make it back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Patrick Kane should win the Hart Trophy.

The reigning Hart trophy winner Taylor Hall of the New Jersey Devils won the trophy on the basis of the fact that he put the team on his back and got them into the playoffs. Hall had a 51 point gap between himself and the next leading scorer on the Devils, and he won the Hart trophy as a result because the trophy is supposed to go the player voted most valuable to his team.

Jonathan Toews currently is the Blackhawks second-leading scorer with 40 points, and is on pace for 71 points. 33 points is a pretty big gap between a team’s top two scorers, and if Toews and Kane each keep their pace, then Kane would have that 31 point lead, and if they make the postseason, he should absolutely win MVP.

Patrick Kane is relied upon every single night that the Blackhawks play, to carry them offensively, and the team will go where he takes them. He is a leader on the team in every way. He does not wear an “A” on his sweater, but that is only because Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook were given them first, everyone knows who the best player in Chicago is.

A lot of the voters seem to put a great deal of weight into whether or not his team makes the playoffs when voting for the Hart Trophy winner, which is why the Chicago Blackhawks probably need to come back and make it in order for Kane to win it, which is a little silly, because there are not many players in the NHL who are more important to their team than Patrick Kane is to the Hawks.