Keller’s red-hot tear leading resurgent Coyotes

We’ve reached the home stretch of the NHL season, with just a dozen or so games remaining on the schedule across the league. It’s put up or shut up time, as playoff hopefuls ramp up the intensity in the hopes of an extended run deep into the spring.

With that increased intensity comes plenty of outstanding action from across the world of puck, and we’ve got it all right here in this week’s edition of the NHL’s Best and Worst.

Player of the week: Clayton Keller

If I asked you to guess who had the second-most points in the NHL since the All-Star break, how many guesses do you think it would take until you picked Clayton Keller? The oft-forgotten gem of the 2016 NHL Draft, Keller has been shot out of a cannon since picking up four points at the All-Star Game in Sunrise, Florida in February. With 34 points in 20 games, the Coyotes star sits tied with Nathan MacKinnon in the two-hole behind Connor McDavid, and his contributions this week are no small part of that. Keller’s five goals this week paced all NHL forwards and notably made him the first Arizona Coyote since Radim Vrbata in 2011-12 to tally 30 goals in a season.

Goal of the week

Back in December, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Nick Seeler set a new career high for goals in a season with his third of the year in a 6-5 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. A journeyman defenseman, Seeler has never been a player on the tip of fan’s tongues often, frequently finding himself playing bottom-pair minutes or more often finding himself in the press box or the AHL. On Tuesday, however, the Minnesota-native pulled a rabbit out of his hat that nobody could have possibly predicted, as the defensively-minded blueliner danced through the Golden Knights top pairing to score one of the goals of the year.

Save of the week

Holy moly, Akira Schmidt. The Swiss rookie netminder has…