A look back at players who have led the NHL in goal-scoring

Ovechkin recently announced that, in order to
"make it more challenging", he will play all future
shifts while simultaneously performing show tunes.

The NHL season has a week to go, and there's no question about who the hottest player in the league is down the stretch. That would be Alexander Ovechkin, the much-maligned superstar who has recorded 20 goals in his last 18 games.

That streak has pushed Ovechkin to the top of the league's goal-scoring race, making him the favorite to lead the league for a third time. That would put him in great company. The league has honored the goal-scoring leader with the prestigious Rocket Richard Trophy since 1999, but even in the years before that award was created there's always been a special aura associated with leading the NHL in goals.

Here's a look back at some of the players from the past who've held that honor.

2006 - While offensive totals increase dramatically due to a series of post-lockout rule changes aimed at increasing scoring, in hindsight the league may have gone too far with that whole "nobody is allowed to use a goalie when Jonathan Cheechoo is on the ice" thing.

2007 - Vincent Lecavalier's 52 goals wins the Rocket Richard Trophy, which Brian Lawton will later claim he totally could have traded for two Stanley Cups, three Vezinas and the Lombardi Trophy.

2003 - Milan Hejduk wins the award with a 50-goal season, causing you to reminiscence fondly about how they're just aren't any players like that in the league any more right up until he awkwardly taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that he actually still plays for Colorado.

1993 - Teemu Selanne ties for the league lead when he scores 76 goals as a rookie, then decides to dial it back a little since he doesn't want to be one of those flash-in-the-pan types who burns out after only 16 or 17 seasons.

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Take the quiz: How well do you know the LA Kings?

While the Rangers and Devils were continuing their battle for Eastern Conference supremacy last night, the team they were competing to face in the Finals was enjoying some time off. The Los Angeles Kings wrapped up their series with the Coyotes on Tuesday to complete a stunning 12-2 run through the Western Conference, and will likely enter the Finals as the consensus favorite.

That's a shocking development, considering they barely made the playoffs and were considered a team in turmoil only a few months ago. Combine their lackluster season with their status as a West coast franchise that typically doesn't get much coverage in the rest of North America, and it's likely that many hockey fans don't know as much about the team as they'd like.

How well do you know the Los Angeles Kings? Take this quiz and find out.

For their debut season in 1967, team owners chose the colors purple and gold for the Kings' first uniforms because:
a.) They were considered traditional colors of royalty.
b.) They were the same colors worn by the Los Angeles Lakers.
c.) They wanted to use up at least one eye-gougingly awful color combination before the mid-90s expansion teams arrived and took them all.
d.) Hey, nothing says intimidation like a mildly bruised banana.

In the late 1970s, the line of Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor was known as "The Triple Crown Line" because:
a.) There were three of them, and the Kings' logo was a crown.
b.) The phrase "triple crown" is frequently used in various sports to denote excellence.
c.) The long-time NHL employee in charge of naming lines by just taking each player's initial and making it spell something was apparently sick that day.
d.) They wanted to save the name "600 lbs of unstoppable force" for future use by Dustin Penner.

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