Even halfway through the 2005-06 season before injuries caught up to him for good he was voted the best player in the NHL with a convincing amount of votes over Jagr and Thornton. It truly is revisionist history to say Lidstrom was a better player than Forsberg, it was only those extra few seasons of winning the Norris after Forsberg was done in the NHL that it began to sway in his favour, which is just wrong IMO. If a player wasn't better, he wasn't better, better career only means something if that player was also atleast as good of a hockey player, and for Forsberg's entire career Lidstrom was never considered as good, heck they each had their peaks around 2002...Forsberg was easily better and more dominant and that's not a slight to Lidstrom in any way that's just how good Forsberg was at the time. He also schooled Lidstrom when they went head to head on numerous occasions, far more often than Lidstrom shut him down. These are all facts btw...so the discrepancy in their voting totals here is very disingenous.