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Icesurfer

Ranking the Wings Forwards' Defensive Ability

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I know that this is the title of the Hart trophy. However, Sakic won it with Forsberg in the same line up and vice versa (or was one of the injured in that season). Lemieux won it with Jagr in the same line up (who had an incredible season that year). So I would say that it is quite possible for a player to win the Hart even if he is not the only superstar in his team

For a player to win the trophy, and for a player to deserve to win the trophy are not necessarily the same thing.

For example, Yzerman won the Pearson Award, which is given to the Most Outstanding Player by the NHLPA, in 1989. He played on a very weak Wings team. Gretzky won the Hart, Lemieux won the scoring title, and Yzerman was left off the postseason All-Star teams. Yzerman scored 65 goals, 90 assists, and 155 points without a single teammate scoring 40 goals, 70 assists, or 100 points. Yzerman is also the only player in history to score 150+ points and receive first place Selke votes in the same season.

So the voters don't always get it right.

But at the same time, Zetterberg was called the best player in the league by several media outlets in the offseason in their 'official' rankings. Datsyuk was mentioned as 'maybe the best player' on a Red Wings program. If any Wings forward is a Hart candidate, it's Z.

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If any Wings forward is a Hart candidate, it's Z.

Lol! As I was saying, not even Wings fans can agree on who was/is more valuable... I have both Lidstrom and Datsyuk ahead of Zetterberg last season! :)

Edited by egroen

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It certainly is, especially when one has a clearly better season than the other, as in the cases you listed, plus Malkin and Crosby last year.

But is that the case between Datsyuk, Zettberg and Lidstrom last year? You won't even find close to a 100% consensus amongst Red Wings fans, let alone media throughout the rest of the league. If one of those three clearly had a better season than the rest, I have a feeling that one would have finaled for the Hart last year.

I totally agree with you that the fact the we have 3 superstars hurt each players chances of winning the Hart. However, I am not sure that you can say that Lemieux had a clearly better season than jagr in 95-96. Lemieux recorded 161 points and Jagr 149. I know points are not everything. But still its hard to believe that one of them was so much more important to the team than the other that you can call him "the most important player".

I personally think that winning the Hart has a lot to do with reputation. Once you are considered to be one of the best players in league you have a good chance of winning it. I guess the media now has a closer eye on Pav and Z so it could very well be that one of them wins the Hart the next time he has an outstanding season.

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For a player to win the trophy, and for a player to deserve to win the trophy are not necessarily the same thing.

I agree. But "deserving" is really subjective so I guess we can only count what a player actually won and not what he should have won.

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I totally agree with you that the fact the we have 3 superstars hurt each players chances of winning the Hart. However, I am not sure that you can say that Lemieux had a clearly better season than jagr in 95-96. Lemieux recorded 161 points and Jagr 149. I know points are not everything. But still its hard to believe that one of them was so much more important to the team than the other that you can call him "the most important player".

I personally think that winning the Hart has a lot to do with reputation. Once you are considered to be one of the best players in league you have a good chance of winning it. I guess the media now has a closer eye on Pav and Z so it could very well be that one of them wins the Hart the next time he has an outstanding season.

That was the only season in which Jagr scored those kind of gaudy numbers, and he finished second in scoring, well behind Lemieux. Lemieux exceeded that scoring total several times, and that season he was playing out of position as well. Third in scoring was Ron Francis, who centered Lemieux and Jagr. While I don't know if Lemieux truly was the most valuable player that year, Jagr certainly was not.

Speaking of that year, IMHO Yzerman should have won the Selke that season instead of Fedorov...but that was an extremely close decision and I can't really say Fedorov wasn't deserving also.

In a given year, each team has their most valuable player, who by one definition could be considered a Hart candidate. In 1995-96, Jagr was not the MVP for the Pens.

Typically, a good way of defining "MVP" is as the player who has the biggest impact on a team that had some level of regular season success, whose absence would have been the most noticeable.

A team that finishes at the bottom of the standings doesn't have a Hart candidate because if he were injured and lost for the season, what's the difference in how the team would fare? Would they drop in the standings? Nope. A team like Detroit that is stacked, what happens if their best player misses ten games? Do they suffer as much as a weak team losing the same caliber of player for ten games? If not, then isn't the weak team's player thusly more valuable to that team as more of that team's chances for success are riding on his shoulders?

Anyone who complains "Waaah, Detroit gets shafted in Hart voting because we have great players!" clearly does not understand what the difference between "Best Player" and "Most Valuable Player" is and can blame your own thought process for the fact that Yzerman did not win the 89 Hart as I mentioned earlier.

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That was the only season in which Jagr scored those kind of gaudy numbers, and he finished second in scoring, well behind Lemieux. Lemieux exceeded that scoring total several times, and that season he was playing out of position as well. Third in scoring was Ron Francis, who centered Lemieux and Jagr. While I don't know if Lemieux truly was the most valuable player that year, Jagr certainly was not.

Speaking of that year, IMHO Yzerman should have won the Selke that season instead of Fedorov...but that was an extremely close decision and I can't really say Fedorov wasn't deserving also.

In a given year, each team has their most valuable player, who by one definition could be considered a Hart candidate. In 1995-96, Jagr was not the MVP for the Pens.

A few comments:

1. what does the fact that Lemieux had better seasons before have to do with winning the Hart in that particular year? If anything I would say that this makes a strong case for my point that a players reputation is important for winning the Hart.

2. I never said that Jagr was the MVP. I merely wanted to say that if you have a player that scores 149 points it is hard to argue that another player was soooo much more important. I also wouldnt say that 149 is so much less than 161.

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Stevie Y,

You are aware that Jagr had 149 pts in 82 games and Lemieux had his 161 pts in 70 games?

Nope, sorry I didnt check those stats. Good point! But dont you think that the Hart usually goes to a player that has an outstanding season and not necessarily to the most important player? I mean the Pens didnt have to rely soley on Lemieux they also had Jagr and Francis. The Avs had Sakic and Forsberg as well as a couple of good wingers.

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Nope, sorry I didnt check those stats. Good point! But dont you think that the Hart usually goes to a player that has an outstanding season and not necessarily to the most important player? I mean the Pens didnt have to rely soley on Lemieux they also had Jagr and Francis. The Avs had Sakic and Forsberg as well as a couple of good wingers.

I agree for the most part...I think it usually goes to the forward who has the most outstanding season, and possible a goalie but rarely a defenseman. It does help if that player is "doing it alone" ie. Malkin last year w/o Crosby, Ovechkin and Iginla were also by far and away the best players on their team.

But if someone puts up Mario or Wayne like numbers, or even Ovechkin from last year - you're right, they are going to win the Hart no matter how good or bad the team they are on is.

Hart and especially Pearson voting is definitely not a science, though!

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But if someone puts up Mario or Wayne like numbers, or even Ovechkin from last year - you're right, they are going to win the Hart no matter how good or bad the team they are on is.

Hart and especially Pearson voting is definitely not a science, though!

exactly!

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A few comments:

1. what does the fact that Lemieux had better seasons before have to do with winning the Hart in that particular year? If anything I would say that this makes a strong case for my point that a players reputation is important for winning the Hart.

2. I never said that Jagr was the MVP. I merely wanted to say that if you have a player that scores 149 points it is hard to argue that another player was soooo much more important. I also wouldnt say that 149 is so much less than 161.

You argued in such a way that it seemed like you were arguing that Jagr deserved it over Lemieux. My point was that Jagr's point totals were inflated by his playing with Lemieux. Had Lemieux played the same number of games as Jagr at the same points per game, he scores 189 points. That's a 40-point margin over the second place person in the scoring race, who was also the second place person on his team and line. Jagr didn't belong anywhere near the voting...but Lemieux certainly was a valid candidate.

Who else would you have given the Hart to that year? The other finalists were Lindros and Messier. Messier was about 15th in scoring and IMHO should not have been anywhere NEAR the Hart. Lindros scored 115 points. Fedorov scored 107 and won the Selke also; he finished 5th in Hart voting with Jagr 4th. Lemieux ended up with more than 50% of the first place votes.

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No, he should not have. The people who decided who should have won it decided on Datsyuk. Gotta come to grips with that some day Eva.

By the way, It was Pavel Datsyuk that got us a victory in OT last game.

Sweet takeaway in the neutral zone knocking a pass out of mid air (at close range as well, even harder to do)

Making a nice self pass off the boards and then a nice inside out move on Wade Redden to set up the Hossa goal.

That was Pavel Datsyuk, not Zetterberg. And frankly, Pavel does that more than anybody in the league and more than anybody in the league his takeaways (ie his defensive prowess) leads to more chances for us to win.

He's the best defender on the team right now. He's probably the smartest, best overall forward in the league right now.

Thru 5 games he is averaging more penalty killing time than Zetterberg. And even though Z has only played 3 games, through those first 3 games Datsyuk was still averaging more ice time on the PK than Zetterberg.

And just to throw this out there, I don't put alot of stock into the PK time on ice b/c it isn't a true indicator of defensive superiority from one player to the next.

For instance, would you say Franzen, Drake, Maltby, Cleary and Draper are all better defensive players than Datsyuk?

Well, if you looked up last year's PK time per game they all averaged more than Datsyuk, and Dats still won the Selke.

You look at who is out on the PK and assume since Z is out there so much he's the best. I look at it and see Babcock resting his #1 offensive generator despite the fact that he could use him on the PK if he desired.

IMO, coming off of a PK, who would you rather have more rested? Dats or Z? Who is going to generate them most offense? Dats is your man. Which is why Z gets more of the PK time. That's my opinion of course.

By the way Cleary and Draper both averaged more PK time than Zetterberg per game last year. Are they better defensively than Z? I would say hell no. But they get more time b/c just as the argument that Dats is more valuable in another role applies to Zetterberg. Zetterberg is much more valuable in other roles than Draper or Cleary.

Pavel winning the Selke was like a team's #2 defenseman winning the Norris. All season long Pavel talked about how playing on Z's wing allowed him to focus less on defense and more on offense because Z was doing all the work. Z applied the positional pressure and sheppharded the opposing players towards the defense and Pavel came up from behind taking pucks away.

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