I'm one who always whines that 7th Player is technically supposed to be for "exceeding expectation", and not supposed to be a "best player" or "most popular with teenagers who vote for this the same way they vote for American Idol". But I do think Pasta's got a legitimate claim here. He had a 50+* goal season, and was arguably on the best line in hockey. NESN made an hour-long show of his goals. Did I think he might hit 50 at the start of the season? Maybe, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't hit it. Did I think he might win the Rocket? Not really.
I mean, I even joked about it at the start of the season, because he was always on top of the stats at the start of the season after his Joe Thornton hat trick...and I joked because I wasn't used to the Bruins having any skin in the Rocket race, and I wasn't sure if it would stick. Well, joke's on me - give him the 7th player, IMO.
I think Chara's in the discussion too. He's got 1,000 games here, is the oldest player in the league, and is STILL our #1 D. And we'll be in good shape when he retires specifically because he's mentored Carlo and McAvoy. The bar's high, and I guess we do expect that of Z, but in another universe, we could easily be saying "Z is declining - we all sort of saw this one coming, it was just a matter of when."