The Puck Stops Here
Who Should Have Won The Hart Trophy?
by PuckStopsHere on 06/23/11 at 05:41 PM ET
Comments (5)
The Hart Trophy goes to the player who is adjudged most valuable to his team. This often creates an incorrect semantic argument where a player who is less valuable is more valuable to his team because his team is worse. Without him on his team, his team would really suck. Thus some people try to pick the best example of a one man team and give the award to that one man even though he is less valuable than players on other teams.
The example I like to give is two boxes of diamonds. Which is more valuable? A million dollar diamond in a box of $100 k diamonds or a $700 k diamond in a box of gravel? If you think it is the $700 k diamond,is worth more, you failed basic math. 1 million > 700 k. The million dollar diamond is worth exactly $300 k more. If you think the $700 k one is worth more how much more do you think it is worth?
With those preliminaries aside, let’s discuss hockey.
The most valuable player in the NHL last year was Tim Thomas. He finished fifth in the actual voting and that is ridiculous. Thomas was the second goaltender in the Hart Trophy voting as Pekka Rinne of Nashville was fourth. Thomas was better than Rinne by essentially any statistical measure you can imagine. Thomas beat Rinne in the Vezina and All Star voting and quite significantly, but because Rinne is perceived as playing with a weaker team (their teams were separated by four points in the standings and Nashville has the defenceman who came close to the Norris Trophy) he got the nod from the voters.
It is hard to understate how good a season Tim Thomas had, but the voters did. Thomas set a record for the best saves percentage on record with a .938. That is a tremendous achievement. Perhaps it can be downgraded a bit because saves percentages have been slowly improving leaguewide over the past 20 years, meaning that with an era adjustment Thomas does not see quite as good. Thomas also plays behind a top defence that helps increase his saves percentage by keep shot quality down. The top Boston goalie has had the top saves percentage in the league for the last three years. Last year it was Tuukka Rask who had the league leading saves percentage. Thomas did in the other two. Though both goalies are very good, the Boston defence is a constant that helps their goalies get top saves percentages. The other anti-Thomas argument is that he only played 57 games, which is a low value. Had a forward or goalie had a truly exceptional year, Thomas could have been beaten, but no such season occurred.
Among the players actually nominated for the Hart Trophy, Daniel Sedin is the best candidate. A look at puck possession stats (+/- or Corsi) shows that Sedin better drove the puck possession on his team than Perry did in Anaheim (Visnovsky and Getzlaf beat Perry significantly) and St Louis was not among his team’s leaders. Daniel Sedin scored more than any of the players in question. He did so in the tougher West Conference (this only catches St Louis) and he showed much better puck possession numbers. Daniel Sedin was the most valuable.
The voters seem to have been stuck voting for the final month of the season. Perry was the best player in the last month of the season. Thomas’s best point in the regular season was in the first half. Sedin was most dominant around the middle of the season. Perry was playing his best hockey right at the point when the voters voted. This play level didn’t last over the whole season, but in the “what have you done for me lately” mindset of the voters, the earlier majority of the season was undervalued. Perry had a good season. After all he led the league in goals, but he was not the best player all season.
Corey Perry actually more relied upon teammates Lubomir Visnovsky and Ryan Getzlaf for his success than Tim Thomas or Daniel Sedin (and yes I know about Henrik) did. Puck possession numbers show this. The voters messed up here. In fact in a top 50 player ranking this summer, I think Corey Perry will be the lowest ranked player to win the Hart Trophy since Jose Theodore. While that hints that Perry may have been a mistake, it doesn’t guarantee it as the Hart Trophy should be for the most valuable player in a season, even if that one season was a clearly unrepeatable success.
The Hart Trophy this season was poorly decided. Corey Perry was not the best player in the league. Tim Thomas was, but he seemed to lose out due to an aversion to vote for goalies. Perry was selected because he was the hottest player at the point when voting occurred and not the most valuable player in the season. That was a mistake.
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Comments
Do you stop and re-read your articles before you put them out there? Just wondering…
anyway…
Corey Perry was not the best player in the league.
agreed, but we just discussed, thats not what the Hart trophy is for…
Your argument about the diamonds is kind of flawed, the real question would be which bag suffers more by missing the large diamond. The award is clearly supposed to be valuable in relation to his respective team. The value has nothing to do with trade market or pay grade or who would you rather have. It was who was more important to their team. Clearly the Ducks would suffer more without Perry than the Canucks would suffer without Danielle(see what I did there?)
The Canucks had multiple 40+ goal scorers, one of which won the Selke, so can you tell me that Daniel was more important to the Canucks than Perry was to the Ducks? No one cares about puck possession numbers, cause you can have the puck all you want, it does nothing more than prevent the other team from scoring, that is not what makes a player important to his team. When it came down to it, and when the Ducks needed him, as much as I hate to say it, Perry showed up. At any point did Daniel put his team on his back and carry them into the playoffs? Nope, he did not have to, because Daniel or no Daniel the Canucks were a strong team. So one might say Sedin was not as important to the Canucks as Perry was to the Ducks.
I will agree with you, Tim Thomas should have been up for the Hart.
Posted by pstumba on 06/23/11 at 06:05 PM ET
He did so in the tougher West Conference (this only catches St Louis) and he showed much better puck possession numbers.
The conference may be tougher, but Sedin played in the weakest division in hockey. Meanwhile, Corey Perry played in the toughest.
The most valuable diamonds are forged under greater pressure than their less-valuable counterparts.
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 06/23/11 at 06:07 PM ET
While I would have no argument with Thomas as MVP, when I look at what player on a high performing team was most valuable I think you have undervalued St. Louis. Perry, as you noted, came on like gang-busters at the end of the season and he greatly benefited from playing on one of the best lines in hockey and a great power play. One can’t ignore that Daniel is heavily dependent on his brother and that the same team did fine without him for an extended period last year. While Daniel had just a great year and I think the twins are a truly exceptional event in all of sports, with Henry, Kesler and Luongo on the team it is hard to say Daniel was the MVP on his own team. St. Louis was more consistent than Perry and less dependent on Stamkos than Daniel was on Henry, in fact, when Stamkos turned cold in the second half St. Louis kept racking up the points with Lacavier; helping him have his best season in years. He makes those around him better whether it is Stamkos, Downey, Lacaiver or Malone. Vancouver did fine without Daniel and the Ducks still have firepower without Perry but St. Louis is the motor that made that team go. Plus, he plays in all situations, plays hard every shift and is fun to watch.
Posted by DMK from Vermont on 06/23/11 at 07:35 PM ET
I don’t think the diamond analogy captures exactly the “weak team” argument. You could also make the case that, say, Crosby suffers because his wingers can’t finish, etc. At the end of the day, multiple players have to make an effort to create each goal, and if one link is broken (as if often is on a weak team) than despite the efforts of a really good player, no goal will be scored.
I don’t have a problem with Perry winning the Hart, though I agree Thomas was the best pick this year. The Sedins got pillow-soft minutes while starting two and a half times as often in the offensive zone as in the defensive zone. MSL is a weird case because his Corsi numbers are not exactly staggering. Neither are Perry’s, and Perry played with perhaps the strongest linemates of any player in the league (you could argue both Ryan and Getzlaf are better players), but with Perry I see a guy who pretty much carried his team when they were supposed to be finished. I had Jonas Hiller as a Hart candidate halfway through the season, and after he went down I thought Anaheim would tank. Instead, they kept on winning, and Perry was a big part of that. Corsi numbers notwithstanding, 50 goals and close to 100 points is no joke, and that was done power versus power.
I think Toews should have been a nominee. He contributed in every situation and was very, very good.
Posted by Anonymous on 06/27/11 at 05:26 PM ET
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Last 2 sentences (just like the whole article) = totally goddamn freaking right
Posted by w00d00 from czech republic on 06/23/11 at 05:55 PM ET