I tend to agree. That was a crazy year. I think it was after that season that trading cards re-exploded on the scene (Upper Deck's first series, O-pee-chee Premier, Score with the Yzerman "Magician" card, etc). Thinking back, the Hart was definitely between Gretzky and Lemieux in my mind, with Yzerman close behind - and there are plenty of reasons why Gretzky deserved it - but the Pearson was definitely between Lemieux and Yzerman for me... if you reward the most outstanding season instead of the "best" player... if that makes sense. I still think Lemieux and Gretzky were the obvious 2 "best" players in the league that year, but...
I think Yzerman kinda lucked out by getting rewarded for an absolutely amazing season, while I think Lemieux kinda got gypped for not quite topping the 200 plateau. It's not hard to imagine that if he actually got that one more point to hit 200, he would have gotten the Pearson, that's how close it must have been. I mean, Yzerman's season might have been more "surprisingly" impressive (by far his best ever, and as close as anyone was coming to Gretz/Lem. without actually playing beside one of them), but the best player in the league was still either Lemieux or Gretzky as far as I was concerned. Maybe the voters just didn't try hard enough to give Lemieux other trophies since he was getting the Art Ross already, I don't know. Either way, Lemieux lost 2 though decisions there, but it's hard to conclusively call them the "wrong" choices.