Years where the best player won the Lindsay but not the hart

[JackSlater]

Orr over Clarke in 1975.
Jagr over Pronger in 2000.
Iginla over Theodore in 2002.
Ovechkin over H.Sedin in 2010.
Crosby over Ovechkin in 2013.

Injuries obviously played a role in several of these. Injures are a much bigger factor in terms of who was most valuable as opposed to who was best, so it is not overly surprising. Some years like 2006 and 2011 could pretty much have gone either way.

 

[Offtheboard412]

2010?

There have been times when a player has missed 10 games and still won the Art Ross (Lemieux and Jagr come to mind) but Ovechkin also did slow down considerably down the stretch. He went from having a 1.65 PPG for more than 50 games during the season and finished with 1.51 PPG. I think that hurt his chances just as much as his injury/ suspension did.

Henrik Sedin despite getting a bad rap and being labelled as an "opportunist" and weak Art Ross winner, to his credit, he still won the award.

Yes meant to say 2009/2010 season.

 

[Czech Your Math]

One player was forced out for a quarter of the season. One player voluntarily took a nap for a quarter of the season.

What on earth are you talking about?

 

[Plural]

well hart is voted for the player who "was" the most valuble for their team. if theodore played for the red wings or something, no way he would have won hart.

that's just how it goes.

Do you remember the list I compiled to you? About Hart winners and the teams they played for? You are still trying to get this idea through around here, even if it is proved to be wrong.

 

[livewell68]

Pronger should have won in a blowout, IMO, and didn't because there were a lot of people who wouldn't have ever voted for a defenseman.

Pronger didn't even lead defensemen in scoring that season, Lidstrom did by 11 Pts and it's not like Pronger played all 82 games either now is it?

Pronger was +52 on a stacked team (the team overall was + 64) while Jagr was + 25 in 16 less games on a team that was +10.

Unless you are making things up, there is no way you can argue that people were reluctant to vote for a defenseman because the NHL story down the stretch was how no defenseman had won the Hart since Orr and they were just about ready to do so and Pronger happened to benefit from Jagr's injury. If Jagr had played an extra 2 games and scored 100 Pts, he would have won the award, as it is he only lost by 1 point.

 

[Ishdul]

Pronger didn't even lead defensemen in scoring that season, Lidstrom did by 11 Pts and it's not like Pronger played all 82 games either now is it?

Going by who lead defensemen in scoring is missing a lot of the point with Pronger that year. He won the Norris in a walk and that was against one of the best years Lidstrom ever had (and I think Lidstrom should have been a Hart candidate himself) He played 79, and the last 2 games he missed were after the Blues had clinched the President's Trophy. Anyways, I would pretty handily have taken 79 games of Pronger over 63 of Jagr that season.

Pronger was +52 on a stacked team (the team overall was + 64) while Jagr was + 25 in 16 less games on a team that was +10.

I don't know why people use +/- in the times where it helps their argument, but using it against Pronger in 2000 makes no sense at all.

Unless you are making things up, there is no way you can argue that people were reluctant to vote for a defenseman because the NHL story down the stretch was how no defenseman had won the Hart since Orr and they were just about ready to do so and Pronger happened to benefit from Jagr's injury.

There are similar such media campaigns for every player who factors into the Hart voting every year (Jagr and Bure got them too) and I don't think Pronger's was especially effective, winning by a single point even in a year in which the best forward missed a large chunk of the season and still won the Art Ross, nobody topped 100 points for the first time in a long long time and none of the goalies were meaningful candidates. He was still left out of the top 3 on many ballots in a year without a good depth in candidates. They didn't like voting for defenseman before and they didn't like voting for defensemen after, and it took a perfect storm of events to get them to vote for one during.

If Jagr had played an extra 2 games and scored 100 Pts, he would have won the award, as it is he only lost by 1 point.

Maybe, but that just illustrates the flaws in the voting. And anyways, the flipside to that is if he played one less game and were tied with Bure with 94 points but with far less goals he would likely have been solidly in 3rd place.

 

[Michael Farkas]

What on earth are you talking about?

The first 12, 15, 18 games of the 48 game dockett...Ovechkin was out to lunch...it's rare to go through a game and not have Ovechkin standout...there were some nights in that stretch where he just wasn't there...he certainly picked it up from then on out and got hot down the stretch...

The way voting went, it's not unreasonable to suggest that had Crosby appeared in even one more game, he wins the Hart...whether he scored in it, or even took more than a shift in it...it was an absolute dunk that he was the best and most valuable player that year...

 

[LeBlondeDemon10]

The first 12, 15, 18 games of the 48 game dockett...Ovechkin was out to lunch...it's rare to go through a game and not have Ovechkin standout...there were some nights in that stretch where he just wasn't there...he certainly picked it up from then on out and got hot down the stretch...

The way voting went, it's not unreasonable to suggest that had Crosby appeared in even one more game, he wins the Hart...whether he scored in it, or even took more than a shift in it...it was an absolute dunk that he was the best and most valuable player that year...

Whether Crosby plays in one more game or all of the ones he missed I still like the choice of Ovechkin as MVP. He was not better than Crosby, but the floundering Caps rode him to playoffs. The Pens still did pretty good with Crosby out.

 

[Big Phil]

Iginla-2002.
It was bad enough they gave the Vezina to Theodore, but giving him the Hart was beyond terrible, but that's just my opinion. He'll just have to comfort himself that the only way Theodore is getting into the hof is if he buys a ticket.

I remember that season very clearly. There is no way Iginla wins the Hart, or should have. The Flames missed the playoffs by 15 points. That's a lot right there. The last time a player won the Hart who missed the playoffs was Lemieux in 1988. Then Bathgate in 1959. Iginla's season was not one that stood out. That was a weak year for forwards with a lot of injuries. Iginla had 96 points to Naslund's 90. I have no problem with him winning the Lindsay but as I said, missing the playoffs by that much is impossible to overlook. Mario missed them by one point in 1988.

Theodore carried a very weak team into the postseason. That last half of the season he was outright dominant. Just look at that Habs roster and tell me if that's a playoffs team (Koivu missed the whole year too).

Others have mentioned it, but Crosby in 2013 and Jagr in 2000 are two seasons that I think injuries cost them the Hart, but not the Pearson.

Not sure what people think about this, but when the Lindsay came out in 1971 the first winner was Esposito and not Orr. Orr won the Hart in 1971 though. Esposito won them both in 1974. Orr won just the Pearson in 1975. For whatever reason, Orr and Gretzky have a disproportionate amount of Lindsays compared to their Harts.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I'm one of the biggest goalie homers out there, but Mike Liut didn't deserve the Pearson (or the Hart) in 1980-81. Not with what Gretzky was doing.

 

[Big Phil]

I'm one of the biggest goalie homers out there, but Mike Liut didn't deserve the Pearson (or the Hart) in 1980-81. Not with what Gretzky was doing.

It was anti-Gretzky bias back then, I think. Why is this skinny kid tearing up the record book and re-writing it? By 1986 it was.............."I'm sick of Gretzky winning everything, let's pick the guy who had 22 less points than he had ASSISTS!" The only time I think the media seemed bias against Gretzky might have been the 1984 Conn Smythe. Other than that, the players were very jealous of him for a while, or sick of him eventually and wanted to pick someone else.