Markus Naslund's Pearson Award in 2003? Worth?

[plusandminus]

In 2003, the scoring race was in the end between two Swedes, Peter Forsberg and Markus Naslund. Forsberg won Art Ross. Later on, Forsberg also won Hart, while Naslund received the Lester Pearson Award as best player as voted play the players themselves.

In this forum section, there is an excellent thread (as a sticky I think) where one can read about the breakdown of votes (not including Pearson). Basically, in the Hart voting, Forsberg had by far the most 1st place votes, while Naslund had by far the most 2nd place votes (at least if I remember correctly). We thus had a clear winner and a clear runner up. I know Hart is most valuable for his team, and Pearson sort of just "best player", but anyway...

How come the players thought Naslund was the best player in the league? Was it some sort of compensation for Naslund missing out on both the Art Ross and the Hart? (If the latter, then either Hart was already known, or the players were pretty sure Forsberg would win it??)
Did Forsberg's physical style of play (and perhaps a reputation as a diver??) be a disadvantage in the player's voting?

What if Naslund had managed to win Art Ross, would then Forsberg still have won Hart and Naslund the Pearson? I know it's speculative, but please give your thoughts.

I didn't see much of Naslund in the NHL, so I may underrate him due to his more average level contributions in other surroundings, like Pittsburgh, Modo, Swedish national team. As a senior, Naslund was an elite player everywhere, but it seems that the only time he was anywhere near a "superstar" was in Vancouver (perhaps also mostly/only with certain linemates, like Bertuzzi, Morrison...).

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[matnor]

The simple answer, I believe, is that Forsberg took over the scoring lead from Näslund late in the season when many of the Pearson votes were already cast. It's also possible that Forsberg was disliked by some players because of his style of play and conduct on the ice (not sure about that one though). Nevertheless, I think Forsberg was the clearly superior player that season. The reason the scoring race was close was that Forsberg missed 7 games, he was actually on pace for 116 points. I also believe that Näslund benefitted more from Bertuzzi than Forsberg did from Hejduk.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

the last day of the season (with not only the scoring championship and possibly MVP on the line, but also first seed in the division) was a sickening display from naslund and naturally clutch display from forsberg. i discussed this at some length in the greatest swedes thread.

i'm sure it made a difference. (pearson voting is done before the season ends.) i think everybody knew who was the MVP and who was the runner up. but naslund is a really "nice guy" and you guys know how pearson voting goes.

 

[Iplayhockehh]

It's silly to say that Naslund wasn't the most feared player on the ice that year from a defensive point of view. He was a pure goal scorer, he had amazing speed with the puck, and one of the most accurate wrist shots I have seen. It is a little silly how people say Markus Naslund would not produce without the help of bertuzzi. Bert didn't play in the 03-04 playoffs, yet Markus put up 9 points in 7 games. This clearly proves that he was a legitimate superstar, because his linemates were brendan morrison(often said to be a second liner in disguise during his prime) and matt cooke. The only legitimate winger the nucks had besides bertuzzi was Daniel, a player who played a completely different game than what Naslund played. I guess you had to watch Naslund play to understand what he was capable of. And I doubt it has anything to do with the fact that forsberg played with an edge and was known as a diver, players respect each other and are fair when it comes to things like this.

 

[plusandminus]

The simple answer, I believe, is that Forsberg took over the scoring lead from Näslund late in the season when many of the Pearson votes were already cast. It's also possible that Forsberg was disliked by some players because of his style of play and conduct on the ice (not sure about that one though). Nevertheless, I think Forsberg was the clearly superior player that season. The reason the scoring race was close was that Forsberg missed 7 games, he was actually on pace for 116 points. I also believe that Näslund benefitted more from Bertuzzi than Forsberg did from Hejduk.

Thanks for responding. Interesting (and nice, since Forsberg is sort of a favourite player of mine) to see you write that Forsberg was clearly the better player that season. In addition to the Art Ross, Forsberg also was #1 in +/- (along with Hejduk) as well as being "arguably the best two way player in the league".

This was a season I analyzed pretty much statistically. Forsberg was sort of outstanding in the ES play (of course Hejduk wasn't too far behind statistically), while also being good in PP, while not doing much penalty killing. (Some Pittsburgh players dominated the PP during the 1st half of season, with guys like Morozov and Mario and others being far above rest of league. Then Pittsburgh started to lose star player after star player.)

the last day of the season (with not only the scoring championship and possibly MVP on the line, but also first seed in the division) was a sickening display from naslund and naturally clutch display from forsberg. i discussed this at some length in the greatest swedes thread.

i'm sure it made a difference. (pearson voting is done before the season ends.) i think everybody knew who was the MVP and who was the runner up. but naslund is a really "nice guy" and you guys know how pearson voting goes.

Yeah, I noticed your comments, they probably even triggered this thread start.

Do you too agree that Forsberg was the better player that season?
(Maybe I should do a poll... "Who was the best player in the 2002/03 season. Forsberg, Naslund, other".)

About during which period did the Pearson voting take place?

 

[plusandminus]

It's silly to say that Naslund wasn't the most feared player on the ice that year from a defensive point of view. He was a pure goal scorer, he had amazing speed with the puck, and one of the most accurate wrist shots I have seen. It is a little silly how people say Markus Naslund would not produce without the help of bertuzzi. Bert didn't play in the 03-04 playoffs, yet Markus put up 9 points in 7 games. This clearly proves that he was a legitimate superstar, because his linemates were brendan morrison(often said to be a second liner in disguise during his prime) and matt cooke. The only legitimate winger the nucks had besides bertuzzi was Daniel, a player who played a completely different game than what Naslund played. I guess you had to watch Naslund play to understand what he was capable of. And I doubt it has anything to do with the fact that forsberg played with an edge and was known as a diver, players respect each other and are fair when it comes to things like this.

Oh no, I though consensus was established and now you come along and destroys it all.
Actually, I appreciate your reply, and hope here will be some debate upon the things you put forward. After all, the players themselves did vote for Naslund.
But... are you sure Forsberg wasn't the better overall player that year?

 

[Mizral]

It's hard to compare but Forsberg passed Naslund on the last day of the season and if you ask me, Naslund had the better year overall. They were both top-tier players and it was basically a 1A and 1B scenario in Hart voting as the breakdown in votes showed.

Honestly I think the Pearson (Lindsay now) has always been a consolation prize. If the Hart winner isn't by far and away the best guy, usually the guy who didn't quite get the Hart gets the Players MVP award. This isn't always the case but it sure seems to be a bit of a tradition. Also some players play favorites and Forsberg was hated by most players for a variety of reasons.

 

[Iplayhockehh]

It's hard to compare but Forsberg passed Naslund on the last day of the season and if you ask me, Naslund had the better year overall. They were both top-tier players and it was basically a 1A and 1B scenario in Hart voting as the breakdown in votes showed.

Honestly I think the Pearson (Lindsay now) has always been a consolation prize. If the Hart winner isn't by far and away the best guy, usually the guy who didn't quite get the Hart gets the Players MVP award. This isn't always the case but it sure seems to be a bit of a tradition. Also some players play favorites and Forsberg was hated by most players for a variety of reasons.

In 2006-07 Sidney Crosby won the Art Ross trophy and the Hart. They also gave the lester to some guy named sidney crosby as consolation...

 

[Iplayhockehh]

Oh no, I though consensus was established and now you come along and destroys it all.
Actually, I appreciate your reply, and hope here will be some debate upon the things you put forward. After all, the players themselves did vote for Naslund.
But... are you sure Forsberg wasn't the better overall player that year?

Forsberg and Naslund were close to each other in terms of the best player. But you have to remember that Naslund put up 48 goals while Forsberg scored 29. Many people put goals higher than assists when judging players, so why not in this scenario?

 

[LaVal]

Naslund also finished the season with 12 game winning goals, a feat that has only been matched once since (only Naslund and Jeff Carter have reached 12 GWG in the past decade). At the time there was a lot of talk about that. That season seeing Naslund set up on the half boards was the same as seeing a puck go in your net. It's no surprise the players saw him as the most dangerous offensive player in the game that year.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Yeah, I noticed your comments, they probably even triggered this thread start.

Do you too agree that Forsberg was the better player that season?
(Maybe I should do a poll... "Who was the best player in the 2002/03 season. Forsberg, Naslund, other".)

About during which period did the Pearson voting take place?

i don't know exactly when pearson voting takes place. but ballots must go out sometime before the playoffs start because i've always read that the votes have to come in before the playoffs start.

i do want to say that naslund was an excellent player. his shot was sick. among canucks i've watched at length, only mogilny is in that category, everyone including bure is behind. and he was a very underrated playmaker from the wing.

but, and this is coming from someone who saw a lot of canucks/avs games when both were strong teams, head to head forsberg almost always got the better of naslund. hejduk was the worst canuck-killer, and continued after forsberg was gone, but when he was healthy it seemed to be him and not sakic who really killed us. that said, i do have a complex about that team. the first NHL game i ever went to was vancouver vs. quebec, when they were the two worst teams in the league. who scored the game winner in OT? mr. joe sakic.

'03 was the year we finally won the season series against colorado (3-2, with the last one in OT) and looked like we could possibly beat them for the division. we celebrated wins over that team like it was game 7 of the stanley cup finals. that canucks team went on these crazy win streaks and naslund racked up points and looked great. but the way they came back to the pack at the end of the season sent us all into a "oh right, they are the canucks, it was all a mirage" frenzy (a sub-.500 road trip that continued into a home stand down the stretch, before turning it around and winning 5 of 7 at the end of the season leading up to the final game where a tie or OT loss would have cliched the division and we got shutout).

naslund was our best player, that was clear-- though, while it seems insane now, there was talk of cloutier being a hart candidate mid-year when he went on a ridiculous ten game unbeaten streak. naslund probably did lose some votes because he had bertuzzi, who was thought to be more of a force than hejduk was. but i remember the consensus all year was that peter forsberg was the best player in the world. him vs. naslund for the scoring race, at least to us in vancouver, was goliath vs. david.

my MVP ballot would have been 1. giguere 2. forsberg, 3. macinnis, 4. naslund 5. thornton/palffy

my long abandoned hockey blog from 2003 (don't look for it, it's gone):

Hart: Based on the last day of the season, Naslund lost the award on the force of one dispirited game. So Forsberg it is, and I wouldn't argue. Give Thornton credit too, I mean, nobody's really sure whether Glen Murray finally blossomed as a 40 goal man or he's just leeching of Thornton, but we all know Mike Knuble hasn't turned a corner. Thornton is to the 2002-2003 Bruins as Pat LaFontaine was to the 89-90 Islanders. Me, I'd give it to Giguere, but Forsberg is a nice second choice.

First All-Star Team: (will be) Martin Brodeur, Al MacInnis, Nicklas Lidstrom, Markus Naslund, Peter Forsberg, and either Milan Hejduk or Todd Bertuzzi at right wing. (should be) J.S. Giguere, Al MacInnis, Nicklas Lidstrom, Markus Naslund, Peter Forsberg, Zigmund Palffy.

(i also wrote about giguere over brodeur for the vezina and macinnis over lidstrom for the norris, which seems nuts now, but made sense then. history has certainly proven me wrong about knuble though.)

 

[Eisen]

Forsberg and Naslund were close to each other in terms of the best player. But you have to remember that Naslund put up 48 goals while Forsberg scored 29. Many people put goals higher than assists when judging players, so why not in this scenario?

I agree with that. If things get close, more goals play a crucial role. Not that I would disagree with that

 

[jepjepjoo]

7th of March:

Markus Naslund 42 goals 87pts
Peter Forsberg 22 goals 84pts

Simple.

 

[plusandminus]

(...Sharing memories...)

Thanks for an interesting post.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Hart trophy votes, 2002-03

PLAYER | FIRST | SECOND | THIRD | FOURTH | FIFTH | VOTES | POINTS
P. Forsberg | 38 | 13 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 60 | 508
M. Naslund | 5 | 26 | 17 | 7 | 4 | 59 | 342
M. Brodeur | 14 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 2 | 49 | 311
J. Thornton | 0 | 6 | 6 | 15 | 14 | 41 | 131
T. Bertuzzi | 2 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 28 | 100
A. MacInnis | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 46
M. Modano | 1 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 12 | 43
N. Lidstrom | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 13 | 41
S. Fedorov | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 22
M. Hossa | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 14
M. Turco | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 11
P. Roy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10
M. Hejduk | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 10
N. Khabibulin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 7
E. Belfour | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6
M. Lemieux | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 6
D. Heatley | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2
J.S. Giguere | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1
M. Sundin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1
TOTAL | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 | 310 | 1612

A few interesting observations:

- Although Naslund finished second in voting, Brodeur had far first-place votes. Naslund moved ahead of Brodeur due to earning votes from a larger number of voters (95.1% of voters had Naslund in their top five; only 79.0% of votes had Brodeur in their top five). I'd interpret this to mean that Brodeur had a relatively small number of supporters, but they were strong proponents.

- The consensus at the time was that Naslund had stronger linemates than Forsberg, and the latter carried his line (and his team) to a greater extent. This is evidenced by the fact that Bertuzzi finished fifth in Hart voting (both in terms of voting points, and raw number of votes) while Hejduk earned a negligible amount of votes.

- Forsberg earned 81.9% of the maximum possible votes (508 / 620). This gives him the 6th lowest vote share out of the past twenty Hart trophy winners.

- The bias against defensemen continues. Just 8.1% of all votes (25 out of 310) were give cast in favour of blueliners. MacInnis carried the Blues that year and arguably deserved to be in the top three.

 

[plusandminus]

Forsberg and Naslund were close to each other in terms of the best player. But you have to remember that Naslund put up 48 goals while Forsberg scored 29. Many people put goals higher than assists when judging players, so why not in this scenario?

Maybe because many great hockey players have been great assist guys. Gretzky is a prime example, having far more assists than goals and helping several linemates becoming good/great scorers. Same with guys who have played with Adam Oates, or Joe Thornton (who I think was better than that Cheechoo guy, even when Cheechoo won the goal scoring title with 52 goals). From what I've seen, it's more often the setup guys who helps the goal scorer more, than vice versa.

From what I've seen by analyzing score logs, great assist forwards usually provides the 1st assist on goals (exceptions perhaps mainly e.g. playmaker to defensemen who shoots and someone puts the rebound into goal, or similar).

Regarding game winning goals, I'm still surprised regarding the attention it gets. Win by 5-2 and the guy scoring the winning team's 3rd goal gets it (perhaps despite someone else scored the 1st, 2nd and 4th goals), win by 3-1 and the guy scoring the 2nd gets it, and so on...

This does not mean I don't think Naslund did a great job scoring 48 goals.
(By the way, Bertuzzi scored 46.)

To summarize so far...
Those who prefered Naslund did it because he was a more dangerous threat offensively, especially when it came to scoring goals, including game winning ones. Naslund also was better liked as a player, plus that he led the scoring race when players voted, plus that some might have thought of it as some sort of compensation.

I don't remember the voting result (if I've seen it). How many votes did each of the two get (in the Pearson)?

Finally, I want to remind everyone, since it often seems to be forgotten, that hockey is always about scoring more goals than one allows. Forsberg was +46 that year, without playing PK. Naslund was +6 (not playing PK). If we assume that both players was on the ice for about as many goals forward (I don't remember and don't want to look it up now), that would mean that Naslund was on the ice for 40 more goals allowed. Perhaps Naslund's line sacrificed defense more than the Forsberg line did in order to score all those goals? Or, perhaps Colorado had better defence and goaltending overall?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

one last thing to remember about forsberg was that this avs team was not only without sakic for a chunk of the year, but it had also recently lost very important players in bourque and drury and replaced them with derek morris and their own young guys. colorado slumped for the first half of the season, when those young players were struggling to fill that void. then they went on an absolute tear around the time sakic got hurt and missed a month, and eventually caught the canucks for first place. forsberg (rightfully) got a lot of credit for that turnaround.

EDIT: i can't believe i found this online but take a look at forsberg's stats from the first game sakic missed (jan. 23, the 5-0 drubbing of columbus that turned around their season) until the end of the season. he was only held scoreless five times for the rest of the year. also note colorado's record from that game on: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/333/gamelog;_ylt=Ai9BmVo1BFB7tEdy.yrxciJivLYF?year=2002

 

[plusandminus]

Hart trophy votes, 2002-03

PLAYER | FIRST | SECOND | THIRD | FOURTH | FIFTH | VOTES | POINTS
P. Forsberg | 38 | 13 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 60 | 508
M. Naslund | 5 | 26 | 17 | 7 | 4 | 59 | 342
M. Brodeur | 14 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 2 | 49 | 311
J. Thornton | 0 | 6 | 6 | 15 | 14 | 41 | 131
T. Bertuzzi | 2 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 28 | 100
TOTAL | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 | 310 | 1612

Thanks for the table.
This can also be analyzed like this...
38 voters thought Forsberg was MVP. That's > 60 %.
Another 13 voters thought Forsberg was 2nd best, i.e. 51 voters (more than 80 %) thought Forsberg was top 2.
Of those 51 voters, no more than 5 had Naslund ahead of Forsberg. This means that at least 46 persons had Forsberg ahead of Naslund.
Looking at 1st and 2nd, we thas know that Forsberg got at least 46 of 51 votes between the two, while Naslund had no more than 5.
Remaing then are just 11 voters, so a huge amount thought of Forsberg as more valuable than Naslund.

Does anyone know who the "Brodeur as 1st" voters had as their best skater?

A few interesting observations:

- Although Naslund finished second in voting, Brodeur had far first-place votes. Naslund moved ahead of Brodeur due to earning votes from a larger number of voters (95.1% of voters had Naslund in their top five; only 79.0% of votes had Brodeur in their top five). I'd interpret this to mean that Brodeur had a relatively small number of supporters, but they were strong proponents.

- The consensus at the time was that Naslund had stronger linemates than Forsberg, and the latter carried his line (and his team) to a greater extent. This is evidenced by the fact that Bertuzzi finished fifth in Hart voting (both in terms of voting points, and raw number of votes) while Hejduk earned a negligible amount of votes.

- Forsberg earned 81.9% of the maximum possible votes (508 / 620). This gives him the 6th lowest vote share out of the past twenty Hart trophy winners.

- The bias against defensemen continues. Just 8.1% of all votes (25 out of 310) were give cast in favour of blueliners. MacInnis carried the Blues that year and arguably deserved to be in the top three.

Interesting about the 6th lowest. To me it seems as if he won by a quite large margin.
Regarding goalies, I tend to think they should be seperated from Hart, since it may be so hard to compare the value of skaters vs goalies. Sort of, "the goalie is half the team".
I too remember Bertuzzi being rated high, and I think he at some part during that time (or perhaps some year earlier) was rated higher than Naslund.
Forsberg did at least twice manage to center the "arguably best line of the NHL", first with Kamensky/C.Lemieux and then with Hejduk/Tanguay. Naslund was basically only good when having Bertuzzi and Morrison.

 

[plusandminus]

one last thing to remember about forsberg was that this avs team was not only without sakic for a chunk of the year, but it had also recently lost very important players in bourque and drury and replaced them with derek morris and their own young guys. colorado slumped for the first half of the season, when those young players were struggling to fill that void. then they went on an absolute tear around the time sakic got hurt and missed a month, and eventually caught the canucks for first place. forsberg (rightfully) got a lot of credit for that turnaround.

EDIT: i can't believe i found this online but take a look at forsberg's stats from the first game sakic missed (jan. 23, the 5-0 drubbing of columbus that turned around their season) until the end of the season. he was only held scoreless five times for the rest of the year. also note colorado's record from that game on: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/333/gamelog;_ylt=Ai9BmVo1BFB7tEdy.yrxciJivLYF?year=2002

Plus that Hartley got fired during the season, being replaced with Granato. Despite that, Forsberg managed to win Art Ross, and have a league leading +48, and helping his team finish finish 2nd in the Western behind Dallas.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Thanks for the table.
This can also be analyzed like this...
38 voters thought Forsberg was MVP. That's > 60 %.
Another 13 voters thought Forsberg was 2nd best, i.e. 51 voters (more than 80 %) thought Forsberg was top 2.
Of those 51 voters, no more than 5 had Naslund ahead of Forsberg. This means that at least 46 persons had Forsberg ahead of Naslund.
Looking at 1st and 2nd, we thas know that Forsberg got at least 46 of 51 votes between the two, while Naslund had no more than 5.
Remaing then are just 11 voters, so a huge amount thought of Forsberg as more valuable than Naslund.

Does anyone know who the Brodeur as 1st voters had as their best skater?




Interesting about the 6th lowest. To me it seems as if he won by a quite large margin.
Regarding goalies, I tend to think they should be seperated from Hart, since it may be so hard to compare the value of skaters vs goalies. Sort of, "the goalie is half the team".
I too remember Bertuzzi being rated high, and I think he at some part during that time (or perhaps some year earlier) was rated higher than Naslund.
Forsberg did at least twice manage to center the "arguably best line of the NHL", first with Kamensky/C.Lemieux and then with Hejduk/Tanguay. Naslund was basically only good when having Bertuzzi and Hejduk.

No doubt that you mean Morisson.

I also agree with you on the goalies on 2 points.


1) goalie is the most difficult position to determine the difference between the actual player and the team he plays for and behind IMO.
It is the most subjective of all 3 major positions to judge on who is better in any given season.

2 There is already a separate award for best Goalie (and best D as well) but at least the Dman plays in similar circumstances as the forwards do.

Ideally in the history of the NHL there would have been separate awards for all 3 spots (F,D,G) since the perception and requirements for the hart have changed over the years in some of the voters minds I think.

Back to the OP, any time that you are judged the best at anything by your peers, it's a great accomplishment.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Does anyone know who the "Brodeur as 1st" voters had as their best skater?

This information isn't published, but I'd also be curious in finding out who voted for Brodeur. (I'd argue it was the weakest of his four Vezina trophies, but that's another topic).

Interesting about the 6th lowest. To me it seems as if he won by a quite large margin.

He won by a decent margin, but it's a smaller-than-average share compared to most Hart winners over the past twenty years. (I'm excluding the eighities because Gretzky dominated the voting that decade).

Regarding goalies, I tend to think they should be seperated from Hart, since it may be so hard to compare the value of skaters vs goalies. Sort of, "the goalie is half the team".

Agreed, since defensemen and goalies both "have their own award", they consistently get a disproportionately low share of the Hart votes.

Finally, I want to remind everyone, since it often seems to be forgotten, that hockey is always about scoring more goals than one allows. Forsberg was +46 that year, without playing PK. Naslund was +6 (not playing PK). If we assume that both players was on the ice for about as many goals forward (I don't remember and don't want to look it up now), that would mean that Naslund was on the ice for 40 more goals allowed. Perhaps Naslund's line sacrificed defense more than the Forsberg line did in order to score all those goals? Or, perhaps Colorado had better defence and goaltending overall?

Plus/minus is misleading unless you consider the context.

- Forsberg was primarily an even-strength scorer, whereas Naslund was primarily a powerplay scorer. There's nothing inherently better about being an even-strength scorer, however plus/minus overstates Forsberg's performance because it ignores Naslund's significant advantage on the powerplay. In total, Forsberg was on the ice for just 7 more goals than Naslund (138 vs 131). Plus/minus gives Forsberg credit for his superior even-strentgh offense (+30 relative to Naslund) but completely ignores Naslund's superiority on the powerplay (+23).

- Forsberg played in front of one of the best goalies in the league. Patrick Roy finished 4th in Vezina trophy voting and had the sixth-highest save percentage of all goalies playing in at least 60 games; Cloutier had the sixth-worst. Naslund was on the ice for 16 more goals than Forsberg (and to be clear, Forsberg was the better defensive player), but some of that difference is due to goaltending. Any player, all things being, will allow more goals playing behind Cloutier compared to Roy.

- As discussed above, Bertuzzi/Morrison were stronger linemates than Hejduk/Tanguay. Since those are all primarily offense-oriented players, this probably didn't make much of an impact in terms of goals allowed, but it boosted Naslund's goals-for relative to Forsberg. To what extent? It's hard to say.

Ultimately I think that Forsberg was both the best and most valuable player in 2002-03. He would have got my first-place vote for the Hart, if I had one. That being said, Naslund was much, much closer than plus/minus makes him appear.

 

[VanIslander]

The Pearson/Lindsay is more valuable than the Hart in that it is the judgement of one's peers, other players throughout the league. That's more people knowing more about the game at the ice level than Hart trophy voters.

Neither Sedin nor Thornton has won the Pearson/Lindsay trophy, nor has Forsberg for that matter.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

- As discussed above, Bertuzzi/Morrison were stronger linemates than Hejduk/Tanguay. Since those are all primarily offense-oriented players, this probably didn't make much of an impact in terms of goals allowed, but it boosted Naslund's goals-for relative to Forsberg. To what extent? It's hard to say.

this has little bearing on the debate at hand, but i want to add that morrison played a defensive role on that line. people who didn't watch canucks games always look at that line and say, "man, if they had a real first line center, how many goals would naslund and bertuzzi have scored?" but morrison was far from an anchor. on his own, he wasn't a point per game guy, but he could have easily put up 85 points on that line with those two guys.

but because naslund and bertuzzi were such terrible defensive players (i mean really just awful), morrison had to hang back a lot to cover for them, almost like the center role in the old soviet system.

 

[Big Phil]

I would have had no problem with Naslund winning it that year, the Hart I mean. He was a wonderful player at that time and has kind of a weird career path. This was a guy who was a superstar cream of the crop player for three straight years and then was very ordinary outside of that. He peaked late and he was irrelevant in the NHL after 2004. Weird.

However in 2003 there was also the idea that Forsberg never won anything in his career before. Never the Conn Smythe, never the Art Ross and never the MVP. Perhaps that played into it a bit.

 

[plusandminus]

Plus/minus is misleading unless you consider the context.

- Forsberg was primarily an even-strength scorer, whereas Naslund was primarily a powerplay scorer. There's nothing inherently better about being an even-strength scorer, however plus/minus overstates Forsberg's performance because it ignores Naslund's significant advantage on the powerplay. In total, Forsberg was on the ice for just 7 more goals than Naslund (138 vs 131). Plus/minus gives Forsberg credit for his superior even-strentgh offense (+30 relative to Naslund) but completely ignores Naslund's superiority on the powerplay (+23).

- Forsberg played in front of one of the best goalies in the league. Patrick Roy finished 4th in Vezina trophy voting and had the sixth-highest save percentage of all goalies playing in at least 60 games; Cloutier had the sixth-worst. Naslund was on the ice for 16 more goals than Forsberg (and to be clear, Forsberg was the better defensive player), but some of that difference is due to goaltending. Any player, all things being, will allow more goals playing behind Cloutier compared to Roy.

- As discussed above, Bertuzzi/Morrison were stronger linemates than Hejduk/Tanguay. Since those are all primarily offense-oriented players, this probably didn't make much of an impact in terms of goals allowed, but it boosted Naslund's goals-for relative to Forsberg. To what extent? It's hard to say.

Ultimately I think that Forsberg was both the best and most valuable player in 2002-03. He would have got my first-place vote for the Hart, if I had one. That being said, Naslund was much, much closer than plus/minus makes him appear.

I agree that +/-, as much else, should be considered in context.

I also think the official stats from NHL aren't very good, and sometimes important stats are ignored while less important stats are being showed.

It should be far easier to analyze ES, PP and SH seperately.
For each, it should list:
GP, ATOI, TOI, G, A, Pts, +/- GF, GA
Then we would have a better picture.
Add PtsPer60min and +/-Per60min and it would be even better.
However, there should also be another pair of columns, that shows the adjusted PtsPer60min and +/-Per60min. This adjustion should NOT focus on teammates, but rather adjust for lower ice times. Fact is, the lesser ice time, the more "extreme" results, which is what should be adjusted for.
(Regarding teammates and opposition I won't write about that here.)

I did all the above, and Forsberg was (along with Hejduk) outstanding in the ES. I don't remember PP, but I think the difference wasn't that big between Forsberg and Naslund.

One might also consider penalties. Causing a penalty (not one from each team) should result in some sort of minus in the situation (ES, PP, SH) it happened, while giving the other opponents players some corresponding plus.

Empty net goals actually also "bias" stats to some extent. Usually players in good teams are favoured, while those in bad teams are unfavoured. Defensive forwards are perhaps favoured, while offensive forwards are unfavoured.

I agree with you regarding the role of the goalie, which is probably often more influencial than all four shiftmates (skaters) together. Especially in the SH play, the goaltender is important. Looking at team stats, teams seems to differ more (bigger difference between best and worst teams) in SH than in PP.