Reinhart, Kaprizov to Take Center Stage on TNT
Hart Trophy front runners Kirill Kaprizov and Sam Reinhart will take center stage as the Florida Panthers take on the Minnesota Wild on TNT tonight.
On a nationally televised stage, the hockey world will get a chance to see two of the Hart Trophy front-runners face-off for one final time this regular season.
Sam Reinhart and the Florida Panthers will wrap-up their five-game road trip in Minnesota against Kirill Kaprizov and the Minnesota Wild with the TNT crew in tow at 9:30 p.m. tonight.
Both players have led their teams to a Top 10 record in the league to this point and have been scoring the lights out, but their cases have some vastly different selling points.
Kaprizov has driven the bus for Minnesota offensively. His 22 goals are one short of Leon Draisaitl for the league lead while his 47 points are tied for second and three points short of Nathan MacKinnon for the league-lead.
He leads the Wild in points by an 18-point margin and has racked up four game-winning goals in the 30 games he has played.
Kaprizov’s play — along with the Vezina-caliber goaltending of Filip Gustavsson — has transformed Minnesota from a team that was on the outside looking in of the playoff race last season to one that sits firmly in a playoff spot.
Gustavsson has been out of the lineup with an injury for the past week and Kaprizov responded with a pair of two-goal outings. The Wild will, once again, be without their star goaltender tonight.
Reinhart’s case is a bit different. He led the league in goals for a while, but fell behind after hitting a four-game snag. He still ranks fourth in goals (20), 10th in points (41) and has the lead league in shorthanded goals (4).
His true value comes on the defensive end, where he has played Selke-caliber defense. Especially in the 10 games captain and reigning Selke Trophy winner Aleksander Barkov has missed.
With Barkov missing the past two games with an illness, this game presents another opportunity for Reinhart to make his case for both awards.
Reinhart has arguably been the driver for a defending Stanley Cup champion that has had a flawed start to the regular season. Their goaltending has taken a dip, their blue line was decimated by free agency over the offseason, but Reinhart has helped keep the team afloat in its own zone and on the penalty kill.
Even with all of those flaws getting exposed on multiple occasions, the Panthers are still tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs for first in the Atlantic. Albeit with one more game played.
There are a few other players out there who have just strong of a case — the aforementioned MacKinnon, Jack Eichel (who has surged to a 42-point start with the Vegas Golden Knights) and, of course, the ever-present duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — but this game provides the stage for a signature MVP-type performance.
Kaprizov had his moment against the Panthers, notching a pair of assists in a 5-1 beatdown of Florida in October. And now it’s time to see if Reinhart has a response on a national stage.
Grab your popcorn, kids. This game is going to be a good one.