Does it? You're really misrepresenting the data as if the East has some massive advantage at the top. The West will finish with 2 or 3 teams with 110+ points, to the East's 3. They will most likely have 8 of the top 13 teams.
It is easier to score against the worst of the worst teams in the West. The East has more top teams and less worse teams. The west has all four of the worse teams in the nhl. The east has a higher average in points than the west. They have less terrible teams and don't have any bottom feeders. All the bottom feeders are in the west. Kuch got 3 straight games of 3 or more points against the bottom feeders. He only got 1 chance to play them. Mack and mcdavid get that chance more times . Kucherov had back to back 5 point nights against the sharks and ducks. I haven't seen Mack pick apart the bottom feeders In his conference like that and he gets more chances. I haven't seen Mack carry his team to back to back cups or go one win away from a 3peat. If kucherov played in the west he would have equal opportunities to light up the bottom feeders and would widen the gap. There is a big difference is the bottom of the west and the east.
True enough, the teams in that bracket mostly bucks the overall trend of the league as a whole. Quoting you when I was trying to counter all the posts recently who were claiming the east or west were "more competitive" wasn't the smartest.
The East has 5 of the top 13 teams assuming the Kings win tonight. If you think their advantage in the 110+ club (assuming they actually finish with more teams in the 110+ club, which remains to be seen) is a huge boon when the Presidents' Trophy winner finished with 114 points, you are also free to believe that. I disagree.
If you want to bring up expected rates, Kucherov also has significantly worse xGA/60 than MacKinnon.
It’s Kuch, McDavid Mackinnon in that order and I don’t see any argument for it being any other way really.
Can you make up some stats to prove Mackinnon is a better choice for the mvp at least?
Just not when it counts in the playoffs.
I answered your question: why does Tampa allow goals when Kuch is on the ice. Because they have the worst goaltending in the league except for Ottawa.If you want to bring up expected rates, Kucherov also has significantly worse xGA/60 than MacKinnon.
There are some 170 forwards in the league with worse xGA/60 5v5 than MacKinnon and better than Kucherov this season, counting players with 500+ minutes played.
You can of course argue how important the quality of competition comparison is for the Hart race, but it should be fairly obvious why the overall trend of the league as a whole and the stats for the two teams the two front-runners plays for are more significant than those of some teams in an arbitrarily picked bracket.
Canadian Art Ross winner
