As the NHL enters its final two weeks of play, Vancouver Canucks centre Henrik Sedin finds himself leading the league's elite players as he stands in first place on the NHL scoring list.
With 101 points in 75 games this season, including 28 goals and 73 assists, Henrik currently leads a pair of former Art Ross Trophy winners in Alex Ovechkin (100 points) and Sidney Crosby (94 points).
Sedin has already joined a prestigious collection of three other Canucks who have broken the 100-point mark, a group made up of Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny and Markus Naslund.
While the lofty ranking is impressive to most, Henrik is more impressed by another aspect of his game.
"Doing it without cheating a lot defensively I think it's where our line has done the best job," explained Henrik. "It's not like we're having two points a night and we're minus two or three. We're doing it without costing us defensively. That's something I think we're the most proud of."
Bure is the only other Canucks player has ever won a major NHL award, taking home the Calder Cup trophy in 1992. The franchise does have two Coach of the Year award winners, and the man with one of them thinks the best course of action right now is to downplay Sedin's run at the scoring title.
"I think for everyone including Henrik it would be a real great thing, but I think him and us right now are probably trying to deflect it a little bit to let him play," said Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault, who won the Jack Adams award in 2007.
Henrik may be benefitting from the fact that Ovechkin has missed 10 games this season, but of the NHL's top five scorers, only Sedin is playing fewer than 20 minutes per game. The others are averaging at least two minutes more per contest.
Regardless, Henrik isn't keeping a close eye on how his competition is faring at the top of the scorers' list. He is much more concerned with leading the Canucks towards a Stanley Cup title.
"There are five or six games per night so it's nothing that I really focus on," said Henrik. "We've been playing a lot of games lately, so when you're off I think you try to stay off hockey.
"In the long run I think it's better to feel fresh going into the big thing which is the playoffs, so I think our main focus is that."
-With files from TSN Reporter Farhan Lalji
