The day before Thanksgiving I asked Blueshirt Banter’s writers who they thought the team’s MVP was for the first quarter of the season, excluding Henrik Lundqvist. Why excluding Lundqvist? Because the goaltender is most valuable and important position in team sports. The fact that a goalie doesn’t take home the Hart Trophy is pretty much shenanigans, but I digress.
The majority of our writers chose 24-year-old center Mika Zibanejad. And really, it wasn’t much of a contest after filtering out the heart picks.
Zibanejad entered this season with a lot of weight on his shoulders thanks in large part to the Derek Stepan trade and his new five-year contract.