Hochman: Conn Schwartz? If Jaden of the Blues continues his momentum, he could be the best player of the series

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As Jaden Schwartz entered the Blues locker room in San Jose, his teammates broke out with a cacophony of zany antics and hollers, but Joel Edmundson said nothing. Edmundson just made the movement of the hand "continue to feed me" as he came out of an imaginary bowl.

The gesture suggests – keep feeding the ball (or puck) of this athlete … and it's as if Schwartz was at Golden Corral on Lindbergh.

"It's obvious that he's been our engine a little," said Monday at the Tyler Bozak Enterprise Center, the blues center. "And a guy who scored huge goals for us all the playoffs, the rounds were not as good as he wanted in the regular season, but he still played very well in hockey, I thought, and he had a lot of chances, and obviously, what he's done so far in the playoffs has been amazing.

"Obviously, we are lucky enough to have it – and we know that it will continue to get better and continue doing these things for us."

Continue to get better? A scary thought.

Now you've heard the statistics: more goals in the playoffs (12) than goals in the regular season (11 in 69 games).

But what about this statistic? He is getting closer to "Golden Brett" for most of the Blues goals in the playoffs. Brett Hull scored 13 goals in 1990 and Schwartz is guaranteed, at a minimum, to play two more playoffs this year to tie Hullie. Hull also scored 11 goals in 1991. And Greg Paslawski was 10 in 1986. The guy they called "Mud" scored only 22 goals in 56 regular season games, but exploded in playoffs.

Schwartz has two hat tricks this post-season. If they win everything, he could open a bar called "Schwartz's hat trick" and kill. (Or, I guess, a magician school).

Is Schwartz the best NHL player in the playoffs? It is difficult to proclaim this proclamation unless St. Louis wins the final phase of the conference – place 3-2, the host country of Game 6 of the Blues on Tuesday. Schwartz has 12 goals, but Logan Couture of San Jose has a league-high 14. to four Schwartz. And, really, Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask is the favorite of the Conn Smythe Trophy, which returns to the most valuable player in the playoffs. Rask has an average of 1.84 goals allowed (for the prospect, Jordan Binnington of the Blues is at 2.44).

Each year, Conn Smythe was awarded to a player from a team that participated in the Stanley Cup finals. It has not been awarded to a player on the losing team since 2003 (Jean-Sébastien Giguère of Anaheim). So, yes, Schwartz has a chance. But none of this matters if St. Louis does not win one of the next two games.

Alex Pietrangelo was questioned Monday on Schwartz's goal, but the captain did not hesitate to clarify: "I do not think he's sufficiently appreciated for what he's doing away with the puck. "

"Sometimes you get caught up in the stats, but no matter how many goals he has, he's dynamic at both ends of the ice, even though he's not scoring and scoring, he's generating so much money. Momentum in so many situations.The work ethic is the best of things.Notch, it does not go unnoticed in our locker room.So when you see a guy start being rewarded at this time of the year you're happy for him, that's for sure. "