Sean Monahan named NHL’s third star of the week

Life has to be pretty good for Sean Monahan right about now. He’s nearing the end of his entry level contract, and with 79 goals and 151 points through his career so far – and counting – he’s about to cash in this off-season.

He really helped himself in regard to those points totals this past week, with five goals and seven points over four games. As such, he’s been named the NHL’s third star of the week.

Monahan was held completely off the board against the Colorado Avalanche, but had points in the other three games, including: two goals and an assist against the St. Louis Blues, a goal against the Winnipeg Jets, and two goals and an assist again against the Montreal Canadiens.

Though he doesn’t have the point streak to match – thanks, Colorado, the one game the Flames lost last week – he scored the same number of points as Sidney Crosby over the same timeframe. Any time Monahan’s name can be mentioned alongside Crosby’s, you know Monahan has been doing well.

He’s now up to 26 goals and 55 points on the season, on pace to finish with 30 and 63, respectively. That would mark a new career high in points, as Monahan’s record so far is 62 from last season. He scored 31 goals that year, so that record is within reach, as well.

Monahan is currently tied with Ryan Getzlaf, Kris Letang, Kyle Okposo, and Jaromir Jagr for 27th in overall league scoring, albeit with a couple of extra games played. Still: that’s really, really great company to be in. He’s currently second in overall Flames scoring, 16 points back of Johnny Gaudreau, and seven points up on Mark Giordano. The next closest forward to him is Mikael Backlund, who has 39 points this season: Monahan is up 16 points on him.

This past week really helped Monahan work his way to becoming the top scorer out of the 2013 draft as well. His 79 goals already leads his class, but when it comes to points, he’s now two back of Nathan MacKinnon, albeit in nine more games played. Still, Monahan, taken sixth overall, is on the verge of being recognized as the most productive player out of 2013. Aleksander Barkov is the only other player taken in that draft who has passed 100 points; he’s trailing well behind at 106, though he’s played 46 fewer games.