Well that was fun, non? Stamkos and Crosby ending up tying for the Rocket Richard Trophy with 51 goals each.

The bright side of today’s win over the Panthers was the empty net goal that Stamkos got for his 51st goal of the season. Going into today’s game Stamkos already knew that Ovechkin had not scored against the Bruins. This allowed Stamkos to go up head to head against Crosby who sat 1 goal back at 49. Crosby scored two goals to bring up his total to 51, putting some pressure on the young Stamkos. And in the 3rd period, he was able to match Crosby with an empty net goal. With 51 goals each, that means they’ll share the Rocket Richard Trophy and Ovechkin comes in 2nd. That’s all sorts of awesome.

Quote from Stamkos via Lightning Strikes

“Pretty surreal to do it in my second year in the league and share it with a player like Crosby is pretty special,” Stamkos said. “And to win it without a guy named Ovechkin in the mix is pretty special too. He’s such a dominant scorer.”

And big kudos to Crosby for upping his level of game to go from being a playmaker to being a goal scorer. For anyone who says that there should be a tie breaker, just forget it. Maybe they can implement some rule in the future, but if you are allowed to get empty net goals, then they should be counted. It went in the net and it counted as a goal, non?

With the win today the Lightning dropped in the Draft lottery order down to 25th, which takes them out of the lotto for 1st draft pick. Nevertheless a top 10 draft pick will help the team in the future, and having Stamkos and Hedman in your future already, makes the future look promising.