1999 Hart Trophy

[MadLuke]

People that say Jagr deserved the MVP over Hasek, could you gave an argumentation how did he create more goal for is team than Hasek saved goal for is ? Or how do you compare forward value to goaltender to have to the conclusion Jagr added more win's to the pen's and more important to them than Hasek to the sabres ?

 

[c9777666]

Jagr was a rightful winner.

He had lost Francis, Barrasso had taken a step back after a Vezina finalist 1998 season, outscored his teammates by 44, KLS Line was not what it would become.

 

[Michael Farkas]

You can't (ostensibly) win the MVP when you miss X number of games. That's been well-established, even if you're a lay-up MVP winner: Pronger over Jagr in 2000, Ovechkin over Crosby in 2013, Matt Ryan over Tom Brady in 2016, Tom Brady over Carson Wentz in 2017 and here we are in 1999 with the same story.

The previous three seasons, the leader in goalie GP averaged out to: 75 games. In one instance, the pace was set by Hasek himself. Hasek comes away with just 64 games in 1999 (t-7th most). So there's 15% of the goalie year gone, based on expectation.

The Hart is not a "goalie's award" anyway, traditionally. They have an award already. So it takes a superhuman effort to even get a goalie into that race. Hasek missed a chunk of games and didn't even win half of his starts. Saves are one thing and they're nice and all...but save is the expected result. Saves don't win games. They never have and they never will.

I'm not here to argue about who did or didn't have a better WAR or whatever the prompt is...that's just a yarnball of averaging stats and the like, I'm not terribly interested in that as the end-all, be-all (I'm not really interested in any one thing being the end-all, be-all, for the record)...Jagr took a team with no depth, no defense and bleh goaltending and dragged them into the playoffs while posting 25 more points than the leader the previous season. Meanwhile, the center depth on the team goes from: Lemieux-Francis-Nedved to Francis-Barnes-Straka to Straka-Lang-Hrdina and Jagr overcomes that and pillages the league for a buck and a quarter...I mean, someone check my math, but he was responsible for approximately 230% of the team's goals that year. And if anyone remembers what he did to New Jersey on one leg in the 1999 ECQF, the guy was just all over it that year.

Rightly or wrongly, Hasek barely eeked out a Vezina that year...

 

[JackSlater]

People that say Jagr deserved the MVP over Hasek, could you gave an argumentation how did he create more goal for is team than Hasek saved goal for is ? Or how do you compare forward value to goaltender to have to the conclusion Jagr added more win's to the pen's and more important to them than Hasek to the sabres ?

Considering that each played for weak teams and took them into the playoffs as a low seed but Jagr played nearly 17 more games, value to team has to go to Jagr. Jagr stood out from the top forwards more than Hasek did from the top goaltenders.

 

[LeafsNation75]

The voting for the Hart always favours forwards. That's not a surprise. Voters also tend to like to reward new players. The two previous years Hasek was great, but also no forward really stood out from the rest of the pack. With Jagr in 1998-99 he was both clearly the best forward as well as a first time winner.

I don't think the voting really reflects on Hasek at all. It would've been difficult to imagine any goalie winning the Hart over Jagr that season, regardless of how well they played

Even though Pittsburgh was the #8 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs that year they still had a 12 point advantage over the Panthers. However let's say things were different and the Penguins missed the playoffs despite what Jagr did, does he still get nominated as a finalist and still win it or does Yashin win it instead?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Jagr drops to three I imagine...

 

[c9777666]

Even though Pittsburgh was the #8 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs that year they still had a 12 point advantage over the Panthers. However let's say things were different and the Penguins missed the playoffs despite what Jagr did, does he still get nominated as a finalist and still win it or does Yashin win it instead?

They were only the 8 seed because Carolina, who actually finished 8th record wise of East playoff teams that year, won a weak division.

 

[Mayor Bee]

[deleted]

 

[LeafsNation75]

They were only the 8 seed because Carolina, who actually finished 8th record wise of East playoff teams that year, won a weak division.

If we were to ignore the division winners at that time and only arrange teams by total amount of points, Toronto would have been the #3 seed. So wouldn't Pittsburgh moved up one spot to the #7 seed and Carolina would be the #8 seed.

1998-1999 NHL Hockey Standings

 

[Big Phil]

The Toronto media made a huge push that season to argue that Joseph was more valuable/having a better season than Hasek, based around him "allowing Toronto to play a wide-open offensive style".

Not the Hart, and not the Vezina either, but Joseph finishing 4th in Hart voting sounded just about right. I don't know who else ought to have finished higher than him because he did transform that Leafs team with the help of Quinn and a surprise addition in Steve Thomas. But it all started with Joseph allowing them to play an offensive game, this was true.

But he wasn't taking Jagr or Hasek's place that year, no way.

 

[Big Phil]

I don't think the 64 games thing hurt Hasek at all. He had played 72 the year before and won the Hart. Then 67 in 1997. 64 wasn't a noticeable drop by any means. That isn't a deal breaker, I don't think. Despite getting hurt in 1999 he still only had three other times that he played more games.

To me the noticeable difference of missing out on the Hart was Tim Thomas in 2011 with 57 games. Or Fleury this year with his early injury troubles and likely to finish with just 50 games. If he's playing 65 games he's possibly winning the Vezina and gives MacKinnon a run for the Hart (who is the obvious choice this year, I think).

 

[GuineaPig]

I don't think the 64 games thing hurt Hasek at all. He had played 72 the year before and won the Hart. Then 67 in 1997. 64 wasn't a noticeable drop by any means. That isn't a deal breaker, I don't think. Despite getting hurt in 1999 he still only had three other times that he played more games.

To me the noticeable difference of missing out on the Hart was Tim Thomas in 2011 with 57 games. Or Fleury this year with his early injury troubles and likely to finish with just 50 games. If he's playing 65 games he's possibly winning the Vezina and gives MacKinnon a run for the Hart (who is the obvious choice this year, I think).

Notably, Miika Kiprusoff finished 4th in Hart voting in 2004 despite playing only 38 games. Also finished ahead of Luongo in Vezina voting that year.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I think voters may treat time missed from injury differently than they treat the varied assignment of GP. Marty Turco in 2002-03 missed a similar mid-February to mid-March period as Hasek and it appeared to similarly affect his Hart/Vezina balloting.

On the flipside, Hasek played a similar number of games in 2000-01 and had greater competition, but appeared on more Vezina ballots than he did in 1998-99 and with a higher voting share (though still a lower amount than most Vezina seasons and some runner-up seasons).

If not because of the month-long injury, I don't know what else could be attributed to the lower voting numbers, as voter fatigue was a non-factor in 2000-01 when he could more reasonably be left off of a 5-3-1 ballot than in 1998-99.

 

[Troubadour]

I don't know what else could be attributed to the lower voting numbers, as voter fatigue was a non-factor in 2000-01 when he could more reasonably be left off of a 5-3-1 ballot than in 1998-99.

Ehm. Could it be be be bee... Voter fatigue?

Voter fatigue was a non-factor in 2000-01 when he could more reasonably be left off (...), precisely because he won nought in 2000 and voters had nothing to be fatigued of.

I mean... Two Harts in a row and bit of desire for a change seem to make more sense than assumption based on what would happen with Marty Turco in 2002-03. But of course, that's just me.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Could have gone either way, but imagine the inhumanity if poor Jagr had never won a single Hart trophy? That'd just be wrong.

I don't know if "poor Jagr" is the phrase to use about him in that time

 

[Admiral Awesome]

As to Yashin his 2nd place finish is a surprise, he was 6th in league scoring that year and was the 2nd team's all star center.

It really was a combination of things: Hasek's record and games missed, Ottawa winning their division, and 4 of the 5 players that finished ahead of him in scoring had another in the top 5 as a teammate. Plus, he really was THE offensive catalyst for the Sens that year.

 

[The Panther]

I don't know if "poor Jagr" is the phrase to use about him in that time

Poor little rich Jagr...?

 

[thedoughboy]

You can't (ostensibly) win the MVP when you miss X number of games. That's been well-established, even if you're a lay-up MVP winner: Pronger over Jagr in 2000, Ovechkin over Crosby in 2013, Matt Ryan over Tom Brady in 2016, Tom Brady over Carson Wentz in 2017 and here we are in 1999 with the same story.

The previous three seasons, the leader in goalie GP averaged out to: 75 games. In one instance, the pace was set by Hasek himself. Hasek comes away with just 64 games in 1999 (t-7th most). So there's 15% of the goalie year gone, based on expectation.

The Hart is not a "goalie's award" anyway, traditionally. They have an award already. So it takes a superhuman effort to even get a goalie into that race. Hasek missed a chunk of games and didn't even win half of his starts. Saves are one thing and they're nice and all...but save is the expected result. Saves don't win games. They never have and they never will.

I'm not here to argue about who did or didn't have a better WAR or whatever the prompt is...that's just a yarnball of averaging stats and the like, I'm not terribly interested in that as the end-all, be-all (I'm not really interested in any one thing being the end-all, be-all, for the record)...Jagr took a team with no depth, no defense and bleh goaltending and dragged them into the playoffs while posting 25 more points than the leader the previous season. Meanwhile, the center depth on the team goes from: Lemieux-Francis-Nedved to Francis-Barnes-Straka to Straka-Lang-Hrdina and Jagr overcomes that and pillages the league for a buck and a quarter...I mean, someone check my math, but he was responsible for approximately 230% of the team's goals that year. And if anyone remembers what he did to New Jersey on one leg in the 1999 ECQF, the guy was just all over it that year.

Rightly or wrongly, Hasek barely eeked out a Vezina that year...

Maybe I'm missing the sarcasm in some of this, but saves don't win games? Why don't we just ice 5 forwards then? Hell 6 forwards and forgo the goalie. Saves make sure you don't lose games, and aren't as flashy. Except when your Fleury winning the stanley cup for one I guess.

The missed games is something that is the biggest issue with goalies, considering they play the whole game and can't play every game. So I understand what you're saying there, but if you're looking at comparing it to the leaders the previous years, he still played 85% of those games available. Mario won with as much games played in 95, and I'm sure theres more that have done around that but I don't think its the route of the issue.

Sure Jagr did all those things, but is it not equally as impressive that Hasek took a starting 5 of Satan, Peca, Zhetnik, and Smehlik into the playoffs?

And speaking of playoffs, who dragged their team to the SCF?

I think its simply down to wins in the end. Like you said, Hasek only won half the games he played. Issue lying in that its harder to point to a game a goalie lost and say he did well whereas a player scoring in a loss can still be seen as a good game, and it was probably much harder in 98/99 when we didn't have as free flowing access to stats like we do now.

Though I don't understand why in Jagrs case (and really all with ostensibly offense only players vs. goalies) there is no impact for him not scoring in 17 games in the season, giving him an impact on only 65 games out of the year and only 1 more than Hasek.

I know you don't like stats, but humor me in this basic one. 28 games of 64 he let in less than one goal, and he won only 19 games. There were another 19 games where he only let up 2 goals (GAA was 2.54 that year) and he only won 7 games out of 19. So even when he was statistically the best goalie in the league unquestionably, he could only win for his team roughly half the time through 47 out of his 64 games. Whereas if he let up 3+ goals, his team won 4 games, he won 20% of of the remaining games. If he was average, his team would have halved the amount of wins at best. They also only won 7 games without him in net out of 24.

As a weird cavet, I think its interesting that if you take out each players effective games (games jagr scored in or didn't play, games hasek didn't play) you end up with both teams winning roughly 30% of the games. While its not a great measurement cause sample size and all, but I'd like to think it indicates they are almost equally shit teams without their respective stars.

 

[Michael Farkas]

You kind of answered your own prompt immediately thereafter. Saves don't win games, that's all. Save is the expected result of any shot, and shots don't win games either. Bad and untimely goals absolutely lose games, we have seen that unquestionably over time (Hasek's last goal against as a Sabre, for instance). But you can fill a wheelbarrow with 50 saves, 100...and take it to the bank or the scorer's table, where ever...all those and a dollar get you the Sunday paper.

A goalie makes 70 saves and then gives up a goal from center to lose it, that's on him. He has invalidated his effort.

Now, some goalies these days provide "plus" goaltending and in his time, Hasek was certainly one of them...but it's not averaging stats that will get you there, a game or a series has never been won on an average or a ratio in history...you have to look at the series itself, the goals themselves...that's what will be telling.

People like to talk about that old narrative about how bad those Sabres teams were...but really, that was a hard working and pretty mindful group defensively (Jason Woolley notwithstanding), they put a lot of care into minimizing secondary chances at the cost of offense (and, as such, to the benefit of Hasek)...let's not pretend that they are out there watching Hasek play.

You mention playing five forwards...you could, but Hasek becomes less effective. Forwards would struggle to push the play into areas where Hasek could excel. Notice that mid-range shots while the shooter moves laterally often fooled Hasek, as he didn't set his feet properly...advanced scouting picks up on this, Sabres knew it too...defensive hockey is about risk mitigation. The notion that goalies make saves (and therefore, accrue save percentage) independently of their surroundings is a notion that died many decades ago...

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Poor little rich Jagr...?

"Poor little locker room cancer Jagr*"

 

[quoipourquoi]

Sure Jagr did all those things, but is it not equally as impressive that Hasek took a starting 5 of Satan, Peca, Zhetnik, and Smehlik into the playoffs?

I think that would have been placed in greater focus had the Sabres fallen apart during Hasek's month-long injury:

Rather than the injured Dominik Hasek, the best goalie in the world and a man with a credit-card commercial, the Sabres would start Dwayne Roloson, the best goalie ever to come out of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and a man who might need three forms of identification to cash a check. Ruff didn't quite phrase it that way. He simply said, "Rollie's in," and then he reminded his team of Roloson's 5-4-2 record since late February, when Hasek suffered the groin injury that was still plaguing him.

They went from 62 points in 55 games at the time of his injury to 75 points in 67 games, keeping their 92-point pace (eventually finishing at 91 points). The narrative changes if they completely fall apart in his absence - think Paul Kariya, whose 1997 Hart nomination was earned largely from an injury coinciding with a Mighty Ducks losing streak - but barring a major collapse of individual performance, the worst possible storyline going into Hart voting is that you've missed a month coming into the end of March and nothing's really changed. New York and Florida (#9 and #10) were still 8 points behind Buffalo with just 13-15 games to make up ground, so while Buffalo didn't officially lock up their playoff spot in Hasek's month-long absence, they were successful in running down the clock.

 

[GuineaPig]

They went from 62 points in 55 games at the time of his injury to 75 points in 67 games, keeping their 92-point pace (eventually finishing at 91 points). The narrative changes if they completely fall apart in his absence - think Paul Kariya, whose 1997 Hart nomination was earned largely from an injury coinciding with a Mighty Ducks losing streak - but barring a major collapse of individual performance, the worst possible storyline going into Hart voting is that you've missed a month coming into the end of March and nothing's really changed. New York and Florida (#9 and #10) were still 8 points behind Buffalo with just 13-15 games to make up ground, so while Buffalo didn't officially lock up their playoff spot in Hasek's month-long absence, they were successful in running down the clock.

I think people tend to ignore the "narrative" factor when assessing awards voting. This isn't meant in a pejorative way, as "narrative" kind of has a negative connotation these days. But the awards voters are largely journalists, and journalists love stories. And it works as a good story for a season if a player's team goes cold without him, or they go on a big winning streak when he's playing well, or whatever. A good example would be Steve Mason in 2008-09: he had an excellent two months as a rookie which coincided with a Blue Jackets winning streak, and he almost ended up winning the Vezina (and finished 4th in Hart voting) because of it.

Or Mario's return in 2000-01. Jagr ended up winning the art Ross and actually outscored Lemieux once he came back, but what writer could resist the allure of a story like that? Lemieux ended up ahead of Jagr in Hart voting despite only playing 43 games

 

[The Panther]

I think people tend to ignore the "narrative" factor when assessing awards voting. This isn't meant in a pejorative way, as "narrative" kind of has a negative connotation these days. But the awards voters are largely journalists, and journalists love stories. And it works as a good story for a season if a player's team goes cold without him, or they go on a big winning streak when he's playing well, or whatever.

That's right. It's one of "you had to be there at the time" things. I mean, there are young'uns on the main-board who can't possibly fathom how Mark Messier won the Hart in almost a clean-sweep in 1992 when Mario Lemieux scored considerably more points in fewer games. Lemieux was never considered seriously in the running for the Hart that season.

The "narrative" you refer to often changes week to week, and -- esp. right at the end of the season -- day to day. I already mentioned the Thornton/Jagr battle for player-supremacy in 2006. Had the season ended one week earlier, Jagr would have swept the board, but, after the last 4 games, Thornton had overtaken Jagr in scoring, and then the narrative of "ex-Boston star gets traded mid-season and wins the Hart" was too good for voters to pass up. A similar (though less drama-driven) example was Forsberg vs. Markus Naslund in 2003. Again, Forsbeg got 4 points in the final two games and Naslund 1, meaning Forsberg got the scoring title by two points, and, accordingly (I think) the Hart.

1988 and 1989 are illustrative of voter idiosyncrasy. By 1987-88, everyone was desperate not to give Gretzky all the awards again, and his mid-season injury provided all the excuse voters needed to suddenly vote not only Lemieux -- whose team missed the playoffs -- but also Grant Fuhr, over Gretzky in Hart voting. (Fuhr had the second worst record of his career to date, btw, and in one month had the worst GAA in the League.)

Then, in 1989, there is obviously the "Gretzky goes to L.A. and makes them competitive" narrative, which obviously swayed some votes. But how could Mario not win with a 199-point season and the Pens improving to 2nd in their division? My theory is that (in addition to the Gretzky-goes-to-L.A. drama) some voters had been burned voting for Mario the year before -- possibly casting votes before the last couple days of the season...? -- and then the Pens missed the playoffs, on, I think, the next-to-last game of the season (when New Jersey won). In 1989, they were going to vote for the guy whose team improved a lot.

I could see a similar end-of-season result swaying voting this year, which appears to be a race between MacKinnon, Malkin, and Kucherov. I suppose whoever gets the last few points on the last day to win the scoring title will won the Hart. In MacKinnon's case, if he gets the Avs into the playoffs he certainly might be the front-runner.

 

[GuineaPig]

I expect Hall will end up high on the Hart voting this year just for his point streak.

 

[The Panther]

I expect Hall will end up high on the Hart voting this year just for his point streak.

I don't think he's going to be top-3, and certainly not if the Devils miss the playoffs (which they're now in some danger of doing, though still lots of time left).