Since i have been a big supporter of Ryan Murphy for a couple of years now, and he is currently leading the OHL in scoring, I get asked "is there any way he can win the scoring title?"
I did some checking and in the old OHA from 1933 to 1945 to the OHL 1945/46 to present, a defenseman has only won the scoring title once. That was by the late Bryan Fogarty who beat out teammate Stan Drulia by 10 points (albeit, with 13 more games played).
Fogarty had an amazing 47 goals and 108 assists for 155 points in 60 games. He also had 88 penalty minutes.
As for Murphy, he has tremendous offensive ability, but i don't think he could win the scoring title with the amount of talent around the league up front. Guys like Matt Puempel, Alex Aleardi, Alex Khokhlachev, Brandon Saad and even team mate Gabriel Landeskog should battle at the top. And that's just 2011 draft eligible players.
Now, there is no doubt Murphy will be near the top, but i think his current 2.6 points per game (which projects to 176 points for the season) is near impossible for him to keep up. I hope i'm wrong. I like Murphy and feel he doesn't get enough credit. Right now though, i feel its unrealistic. Let's see where we are at at Christmas time.
Note: If anyone has stats that are more accurate than those i found, please let me know and i will update it.
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