Before this season, when he set a new career-best with 38 points, Lars Eller had never scored more than 30 points in an NHL season (although it’s worth noting that those 30 points came in only 46 games played in 2012-2013). He was a dependable, if unremarkable, depth player. In this year’s playoffs, that same guy has 11 points (5g, 6a) in fourteen games played.
And no points bigger than his game-winner late in the 2nd period of Game 2 in the Eastern Conference Final, and in the game before that a powerplay goal that put the Caps up 4-0, and the opening game of the series firmly out of reach for the Tampa Bay Lightning.