Patric Hornqvist scored 22 goals for the Nashville Predators last season, good for 73rd in the NHL and placing him in the company of players like Brent Burns, Alexander Semin and Matt Read. It's a classic case of "one of these things is not like the others," though, as it's highly unlikely that Burns, Semin or Read will jump into the NHL's top 20 goal scorers in 2014-15.
Hornqvist, on the other hand, is poised to do just that. The 5'11", 189-pound forward has scored at least 20 goals in each of his four full campaigns—he only scored two goals in 28 games his rookie season and four times in 24 games during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season—and has averaged 0.29 goals per game across his career.
Excuse the echo chamber comment here, but if Hornqvist can score at that clip for the Predators (the league's 19th-most effective goal-producing team in 2013-14, the 29th-most effective in 2012-13 and so on), then he's going to set the world on fire in a Pittsburgh Penguins uniform.
When naming the NHL's best offensive centers, you won't be able to make it through more than five or six names without naming ...
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Article written by Franklin Steele
Why Patric Hornqvist Will Be a Top-20 Goal Scorer in 2014-15
August 19th, 2014 by Franklin Steele Leave a reply »
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