Thanks to his , including an a sist with just nine seconds to play, forward was able to jump over forward and claim his first Art Ro s Trophy as the NHLs scoring champion.His final total for the season: 87 points.For an NHL scoring champion that is a rather unimpre sive number, at least compared to other winners throughout league history. That is not a reflection on Benn as an elite scorer in the league (because he is one of the very best) or the talent level in the game today (because the league is absolutely loaded with skilled players).It's more of a reflection on the way the game is played.There was a time within the past 25 years when that total not only wouldnt get a player within spitting distance of the Art Ro s Trophy, but probably wouldnt even be good enough to get them into the top-20 in the scoring race. It used to be that Victor Scott Ii Jersey if you didnt record at least a minimum of 100 points in a season you didnt have a snowballs chance in hell at winning the scoring title.Excluding the lockout shortened seasons in 1994-95 and 2012-13, Benns 87 point total was the lowest total for a scoring champion since the NHL expanded to an 82-game regular season. To find the last time an NHL scoring champion failed to top 90 points in a single season you have to go all the way back to forward Stan Mikita in 1967-68 when he finished with a league-leading 87 points for the Chicago Blackhawks (and that performance came during a 74-game regular season, with Mikita playing in only 72 game of those games. His point per game average that season would have been good enough for 99 points under the current 82-game format). So what does this mean for the 2015-16 season (and beyond)? A few things.1) Adjust your expectations accordinglyIf recent NHL history has shown us anything its that not only are the days of players reaching the 100-point mark all but finished, even getting to 90 points is starting to look like an unreachable goal for all but one or two players in the league.Over the past two seasons only one player captain has topped 90 points, continuing a downward trend in recent years. If you go back to the 2011-12 season, only three players reached that mark (five players scored at a 90-point pace during the 2012-13 lockout shortened season) which was down from five in 2010-11. That number was a decrease from the seven that we saw in both 2009-10 and 2008-09.Nearly 20 years ago in 1995-96 there were 22 players topped 90 points.Keep all of that in mind when a player that averages 50 or 60 points per season gets a huge contract extension and you ask yourself how a guy that produces at level gets such a big payday. Or why your teams first-line winger has 50 points. Its not because hes bad or not a legitimate top-line player, or because your team made a bad investment. Its because 50 or 60 points in todays NHL a top-line player, and 80 points is pretty much a superstar.Only 89 players, and only 78 forwards, topped the 50-point mark last season. There are 90 players playing first-line minutes at any given time.Over the past five seasons only eight players Crosby, Claude Giroux, Alex Ovechkin, , John Tavares, Steven Stamkos, Corey Perry and Henrik Sedin have had more than one 80 point season. Nobody has had more than two. Only eight different players have topped 90 points (only Steven Stamkos has done it more than once) and only three players (Crosby, Sedin, and ) have topped 100. 2) Your best player will be kept off the scoresheet a lotGoal scoring in the NHL is pretty close to an all-time low right now, at least as far as the modern era is concerned. The average game features a little more than five goals between two teams, meaning that the winning team on a given night is only scoring two or three goals.There are a lot of factors that have gone into that development, from the systematic nature of the game, to the fact goaltenders are bigger, faster, more athletic and better than theyve ever been, to the fact that power play opportunities have been consistently trending downward for several years (and it's not because penalties aren't being committed; they're just not being called).That means there are fewer goals to go around for individual players, and that means lower point totals for the NHL's best players. One of the biggest myths in the NHL right now is the idea consistency when it comes to a player's production. Effort can be consistent. A style of play can be consistent. A players ability and willingne s to compete can be consistent. But whenever "consistency" gets talked about it's not usually effort or a particular style of play that is the focus. It's scoring.If a top goal-scorer goes four or five games and is playing well, creating chances, helping out defensively, getting shots and helping make his linemates better but doesn't score a goal, he is probably going to get criticized for not scoring because that's what he is paid to do. The problem with that line of thinking is that if there is one thing in the NHL that is consistent right now for any player, it's scoring.This is true for the very best players in the league just as it is for the guys filling out the third-and fourth-lines. There are only a handful of players in the NHL right now that can finish with a point-per-game average over the course of a full season. What sometimes gets lost there is the fact that the players that able to maintain that average are not recording a single point every night over the course of 82 games. They don't do it on a schedule. They do it by recording points in bunches. Two points here. Three points there. The occasional four-or five-point game mixed in if things are going especially well. That means there are going to be an awful lot of games over the course of the season where they get Sometimes over multiple games in a row.Just look at the top-10 scorers in the NHL this past season: Jamie Benn, John Tavares, Sidney Crosby, Jakob Voracek, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Tyler Sequin, Daniel Sedin, Jiri Hudler, Nick Foligno.All of them were held without a single point in more more than of the games last season, while nine of them had at least one stretch of three-or-more games in a row where they did not record a single point (the lone exception was, of all people, Voracek. At no point last season did he go more than two games without a point, which is a pretty remarkable accomplishment). Many of them had multiple stretches of three-or-more games without a point. Just for comparisons sake, go back 20 years to the 1993-94 season when not one of the league's top-10 scorers was held scorele s in more than 27 percent of his games. When a player Phil Ke sel or Alex Ovechkin goes through a scoring slump this season it's not because they're not playing hard enough.It's not because they have problems with consistency.It's because the NHL is set up for player to be streaky.3) So how many points is it going to take to win the Art Ro s Trophy this season? The folks at Bovada released their preseason over/under projections for the top scorers in the league this season and only one of them was set above 90 (Crosby).It's probably a safe bet that for the second year in a row the NHL's leading scorer finishes below the century mark, and perhaps even in the 80s again. As mentioned above, only one player has topped 90 points over the past two seasons and the elite, generational scorers in the league right now (Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin) are at a point in their careers where they have probably already hit their peak as offensive players ( ), so they probably shouldn't be counted on for 100 or 110 point seasons anymore.The addition of 3-on-3 overtime this season will no doubt lead to some sort of increase in scoring, but it's probably not going to be huge, at least for individual players. The average NHL team probably only plays between 14 and 18 overtime games per season, and they're not going to score in all of them. And even in the games where they score, it's not going to be from the same players every time. It's certainly not going to be enough of an increase to turn an 85-point scorer back into a 95-or 100-point scorer. You're probably not going to see the return of the 100-point scorer until the league does something drastic like changes goalie equipment or the size of the nets, or goes back to awarding teams seven or eight power plays per game.It's a shame, too, because the NHL is loaded with skilled, creative and talented players that aren't always given an opportunity (whether due to coaching and playing styles, or the way the rules are enforced) to showcase their abilities. Riley O'brien Jersey