2001-2002 Hart Trophy voting

illpucks

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Why wasn't this split? And if it was rule based, do you think it should have been split?

Hart Memorial Trophy

  • Most Valuable Player
  • Share & more
ScoringGoalie StatsPoint Shares
PlacePlayerAgeTmPosVotesVote%1st2nd3rd4th5thGAPTS+/-WLT/OGAASV%OPSDPSGPSPS
1Jose Theodore25MTLG43470.00261695202203024102.11.9310.00.017.417.4
2Jarome Iginla24CGYRW43470.00231812535244962711.23.20.014.4
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
 

Professor What

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Quite frankly, I consider that result to have been a travesty. Going into that night, it was assumed by virtually everyone that Iginla was going to win that award, and his season certainly deserved it. There's a rumor, and a quick Google search will yield plenty of results for this, that one Montreal-based voter left Iginla off of his ballot entirely in order to help create this result. I won't post the link here since I don't know what the rules are for something like this here, but I recently wrote a brief article on this. The site is linked on my profile if anyone is interested though.
 

buffalowing88

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Quite frankly, I consider that result to have been a travesty. Going into that night, it was assumed by virtually everyone that Iginla was going to win that award, and his season certainly deserved it. There's a rumor, and a quick Google search will yield plenty of results for this, that one Montreal-based voter left Iginla off of his ballot entirely in order to help create this result. I won't post the link here since I don't know what the rules are for something like this here, but I recently wrote a brief article on this. The site is linked on my profile if anyone is interested though.

Interesting...I feel like I'm on the wrong side of history but I was honestly okay with Theodore winning that year. He gets a lot of flack on these boards and I don't think he was some transcendent talent, but in that one year, he definitely stood out. I live in North Carolina and was here when that happened and people actually knew who Theodore was when the season was going on. I think that passes a couple of eye tests for me. I'm also, admittedly, just not a big fan of Iginla (or St. Louis) and those 00-04 forwards who excelled specifically during that time. I think Iginla wound up with the HHOF career he deserved, but he was no clear favorite for the MVP that year imo.
 

Passchendaele

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Quite frankly, I consider that result to have been a travesty. Going into that night, it was assumed by virtually everyone that Iginla was going to win that award, and his season certainly deserved it. There's a rumor, and a quick Google search will yield plenty of results for this, that one Montreal-based voter left Iginla off of his ballot entirely in order to help create this result. I won't post the link here since I don't know what the rules are for something like this here, but I recently wrote a brief article on this. The site is linked on my profile if anyone is interested though.
I don't see how Iginla was any more of a logical choice to win it. Flames didn't even make it to the post-season and were a sub-.500 team.

Theodore had the most dominant non-Hasek season in recent years and brought his putrid team (deprived of their #1 C for the whole year) to the playoffs.

At the time I felt Theodore fully deserved it, but I didn't expect him to win.
 

illpucks

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What are the odds it is 434/434 split. I think it should have been given to both.
 

Professor What

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Interesting...I feel like I'm on the wrong side of history but I was honestly okay with Theodore winning that year. He gets a lot of flack on these boards and I don't think he was some transcendent talent, but in that one year, he definitely stood out.

You'll get no argument from me about how good he was that year. He was phenomenal. He and Roy actually ended up with a percentage points tie in the Vezina voting that year too, which was appropriate, imo. Those two guys were neck and neck that year, and as that was arguably one of Roy's better years, that's really saying something. Generally, I feel that criteria for a goalie winning a Hart should be pretty specific, because overwhelmingly, in the strictest sense of the term, goalies tend to be their team's MVP. The close battle between Theodore and Roy kind of precludes it to me, because the strict definition risks turning the Hart into a second Vezina.

I don't see how Iginla was any more of a logical choice to win it. Flames didn't even make it to the post-season and were a sub-.500 team.

See above for my feelings on Theodore's play that year, which was excellent. But, the thing about missing the postseason holds absolutely no water to me, even though the voters seem to be going that way in recent years. The award is supposed to be given to the player judged to be most valuable to his team, though it seems to have turned into an award given to the best player on a playoff team. Iginla's offense was impressive that year. Only four players even reached 80 points, and he had 96. His 52 goals beat the second-place finishers by a whopping 11 goals -- nearly 20%.

The Habs would have hurt without Theodore, no doubt. They almost certainly wouldn't have made the playoffs without him. But, without Iginla, those Flames probably would have been one of the worst dumpster fires the league has ever seen. I think that fits the very definition of being most valuable to his team.
 

buffalowing88

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You'll get no argument from me about how good he was that year. He was phenomenal. He and Roy actually ended up with a percentage points tie in the Vezina voting that year too, which was appropriate, imo. Those two guys were neck and neck that year, and as that was arguably one of Roy's better years, that's really saying something. Generally, I feel that criteria for a goalie winning a Hart should be pretty specific, because overwhelmingly, in the strictest sense of the term, goalies tend to be their team's MVP. The close battle between Theodore and Roy kind of precludes it to me, because the strict definition risks turning the Hart into a second Vezina.



See above for my feelings on Theodore's play that year, which was excellent. But, the thing about missing the postseason holds absolutely no water to me, even though the voters seem to be going that way in recent years. The award is supposed to be given to the player judged to be most valuable to his team, though it seems to have turned into an award given to the best player on a playoff team. Iginla's offense was impressive that year. Only four players even reached 80 points, and he had 96. His 52 goals beat the second-place finishers by a whopping 11 goals -- nearly 20%.

The Habs would have hurt without Theodore, no doubt. They almost certainly wouldn't have made the playoffs without him. But, without Iginla, those Flames probably would have been one of the worst dumpster fires the league has ever seen. I think that fits the very definition of being most valuable to his team.

I like all the points you raise. In terms of the MVP being more likely for goalies since, for all intents and purposes, they are normally going to be the most important player on the ice, I especially agree. I'm a Buffalo fan but even I wonder if Hasek didn't deserve one of those Hart Trophies...

I also appreciate you mentioning the scoring differential for Iginla compared to other players at that time. Definitely something worth noting. I think my issue with Iginla is that he was very much dependent on a line that could do things for him. If I recall correctly, he had Conroy and Langkow for the majority of that period. Both of those guys were very underrated. I just tend to think less of 00-04 forwards in general. Be it Elias, St.Louis, LeCavalier, etc...they lacked a comprehensive part of the game which quickly got exposed when real talents came out in the ensuing years. I'm sure Thornton belongs on that list as well but he's a touchy subject.

Anyways, thanks for the interesting insights! I didn't realize Roy had such a good campaign that year. Makes me appreciate him even more.
 
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Professor What

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I think my issue with Iginla is that he was very much dependent on a line that could do things for him. If I recall correctly, he had Conroy and Langkow for the majority of that period.

Well, while I know he gets that criticism at times, I don't think it applies in 01-02. Here are the top few points totals for that team after Iginla:
Conroy 75, Dean McAmmond 51, Derek Morris 34. There's a very sharp fall off there, obviously, and in fact, only five forwards on that team reached even 20 points. We're talking about a team that was starved offensively even for an offensively starved season. Perhaps even more to the point, Iginla, while known much more for his goalscoring than his playmaking, put up 44 assists, which nearly matched Conroy's team-leading 48, and, as you accurately point out, Conroy was certainly a playmaker. Whatever can be said of his play at other times, Iginla made things happen that year on a team where pretty much nothing was happening.

Edit: I keep forgetting to point out that the thing that bothers me most, assuming it's true, and it's pretty widely held to be, is that one of the voters used his ballot to try to manipulate the voting. I have far more of a problem with that than I do the actual result. That's an insult to the game itself.
 
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buffalowing88

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Well, while I know he gets that criticism at times, I don't think it applies in 01-02. Here are the top few points totals for that team after Iginla:
Conroy 75, Dean McAmmond 51, Derek Morris 34. There's a very sharp fall off there, obviously, and in fact, only five forwards on that team reached even 20 points. We're talking about a team that was starved offensively even for an offensively starved season. Perhaps even more to the point, Iginla, while known much more for his goalscoring than his playmaking, put up 44 assists, which nearly matched Conroy's team-leading 48, and, as you accurately point out, Conroy was certainly a playmaker. Whatever can be said of his play at other times, Iginla made things happen that year on a team where pretty much nothing was happening.

Edit: I keep forgetting to point out that the thing that bothers me most, assuming it's true, and it's pretty widely held to be, is that one of the voters used his ballot to try to manipulate the voting. I have far more of a problem with that than I do the actual result. That's an insult to the game itself.

Fair points. I didn't realize the dropoff was that steep. I have to give Iginla some credit there for sure.

And yeah, your main point is what matters here. A voter who influences the final results like that should be immediately identified and questioned. Ridiculous. It happens in the NBA quite a bit as the new voting just came out like yesterday. I hate to see it.
 
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TheDevilMadeMe

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Quite frankly, I consider that result to have been a travesty. Going into that night, it was assumed by virtually everyone that Iginla was going to win that award, and his season certainly deserved it. There's a rumor, and a quick Google search will yield plenty of results for this, that one Montreal-based voter left Iginla off of his ballot entirely in order to help create this result. I won't post the link here since I don't know what the rules are for something like this here, but I recently wrote a brief article on this. The site is linked on my profile if anyone is interested though.

It is true that 1 writer left Iginla off his ballot. However, 4 writers left Theodore off, and nobody complains about them. Just viewing the voting totals in the table provided in the OP, you see that 3 more writers listed Iginla on their ballot than Theodore.

IMO, Iginla should have received fewer Hart votes than he actually did - he was great in the first 1/3 or so of the season, then fell back to earth in the middle of the year, as the Flames fell out of the playoff picture. Then with the Flames effectively eliminated from the playoffs, they had nothing to play for other than Iginla's stats, and focused on feeding him the puck rather than winning meaningless games.
 

quoipourquoi

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Quite frankly, I consider that result to have been a travesty. Going into that night, it was assumed by virtually everyone that Iginla was going to win that award, and his season certainly deserved it.

I don’t believe that to be the case. With ~5 games left in the season, the media was split over quite a few players:

ESPN.com: NHL - Hart Trophy: Decisions, decisions

Jose Theodore had a red hot finish and the Canadiens narrowly made the playoffs. Iginla, meanwhile, saw his Flames start the season with 32 points in 21 games and then collect just 19 more wins 47 more points in the final 61 games.

The Flames were good when Roman Turek had a .940 through around Thanksgiving and were pretty terrible outside of that - whether Iginla was scoring or not. There wasn’t a lot of measurable value in what Iginla was doing in terms of its effect on the Flames’ season, and had Theodore and the Canadiens not made the playoffs, the voters likely switch over to another player who did.
 

buffalowing88

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I don’t believe that to be the case. With ~5 games left in the season, the media was split over quite a few players:

ESPN.com: NHL - Hart Trophy: Decisions, decisions

Jose Theodore had a red hot finish and the Canadiens narrowly made the playoffs. Iginla, meanwhile, saw his Flames start the season with 32 points in 21 games and then collect just 19 more wins 47 more points in the final 61 games.

The Flames were good when Roman Turek had a .940 through around Thanksgiving and were pretty terrible outside of that - whether Iginla was scoring or not. There wasn’t a lot of measurable value in what Iginla was doing in terms of its effect on the Flames’ season, and had Theodore and the Canadiens not made the playoffs, the voters likely switch over to another player who did.

Jesus...someone made an argument for Francis in the link you provided. I can't even...

I think TheDevilMadeMe raises some good points in terms of Iginla being fed the puck a lot by the end of the season. That's not a myth, it was going on and recognized. I can find a link if you want but regardless, like you said, Theodore made the playoffs. To me, that means a lot if we're looking at an MVP.

Ron Francis....I cannot even handle that.
 
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bobholly39

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Why wasn't this split? And if it was rule based, do you think it should have been split?

Hart Memorial Trophy

  • Most Valuable Player
  • Share & more
ScoringGoalie StatsPoint Shares
PlacePlayerAgeTmPosVotesVote%1st2nd3rd4th5thGAPTS+/-WLT/OGAASV%OPSDPSGPSPS
1Jose Theodore25MTLG43470.00261695202203024102.11.9310.00.017.417.4
2Jarome Iginla24CGYRW43470.00231812535244962711.23.20.014.4
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

It's a rule that 1st place votes are tie-breakers, so it's fine. The rule is even somewhat logical, so I have no issue with it. If people dislike it and think in the future a tie should mean a trophy split - that could be ok too, but you have to change rule ahead of time to be fair.


Quite frankly, I consider that result to have been a travesty. Going into that night, it was assumed by virtually everyone that Iginla was going to win that award, and his season certainly deserved it. There's a rumor, and a quick Google search will yield plenty of results for this, that one Montreal-based voter left Iginla off of his ballot entirely in order to help create this result. I won't post the link here since I don't know what the rules are for something like this here, but I recently wrote a brief article on this. The site is linked on my profile if anyone is interested though.

I honestly never understood this line of reasoning, and I've heard it often. Isn't it worst that 4 voters left Theodore off their ballots, versus just 1 voter leaving Iginla off their ballots? If there's a conspiracy, wouldn't these results indicate you have that backwards?

Theodore won fair and square - and I also think he deserved it. He was absolutely insane in the second half of the season
 
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quoipourquoi

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An interesting fact: in the ~25 years since the Hart ballot switched to the 10-7-5-3-1 format, 2001-02 remains the only year that one of the four positions (C, W, D, G) was completely shutout on every single ballot.

2017-18 was pretty close as well, with just 2 of 164 ballots featuring a Defenseman.
 
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Dennis Bonvie

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Jesus...someone made an argument for Francis in the link you provided. I can't even...

I think TheDevilMadeMe raises some good points in terms of Iginla being fed the puck a lot by the end of the season. That's not a myth, it was going on and recognized. I can find a link if you want but regardless, like you said, Theodore made the playoffs. To me, that means a lot if we're looking at an MVP.

Ron Francis....I cannot even handle that.

At least Francis got his team to the playoffs. (and then the finals)

Francis was 6th in voting, got more votes than Joe Sakic.
 

CaptBrannigan

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It's a rule that 1st place votes are tie-breakers, so it's fine. The rule is even somewhat logical, so I have no issue with it. If people dislike it and think in the future a tie should mean a trophy split - that could be ok too, but you have to change rule ahead of time to be fair.




I honestly never understood this line of reasoning, and I've heard it often. Isn't it worst that 4 voters left Theodore off their ballots, versus just 1 voter leaving Iginla off their ballots? If there's a conspiracy, wouldn't these results indicate you have that backwards?

Theodore won fair and square - and I also think he deserved it. He was absolutely insane in the second half of the season
I’ve never seen a poster who complains of the “missing” Iginla even acknowledge that the tie vote came with Iginla featuring on 3 more ballots...really changes the picture I feel.
 
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JackSlater

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I don't think that it should have been shared given that there was a known tiebreaker in place for such a situation. Definitely a weak year for top end performances, a lingering effect of the many injuries that hampered the stars of the late 90s and a general malaise in player development. Given the criteria of the award Theodore was a very reasonable choice that year.
 

Hockey Outsider

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I agree Iginla was the best player in the NHL that year, but Theodore rightfully won the Hart trophy. There are a few points against Iginla:

First, Iginla had a huge mid-season slump where he scored only 13 points in 23 games. He was tied for 143rd in scoring during that six week period. The Flames went 6-15-2. This effectively ended their playoff hopes. They were the 2nd best team in the conference through December 4th (behind Detroit, tied with Edmonton). During that slump (December 5th to January 26th), the Flames were dead last in the league. Of course, the Flames were a bad team, but having their best player disappear for a third of the season was ruinous.

Also, he didn't start to run away with the Richard and Art Ross until late in the season. As of February 27th, five players (Naslund, Thornton, Shanahan and Roenick) were within five points of him. Then he scored 17 goals and 32 points in the last 23 games of the season which, due to the Flames' midyear slump, were effectively meaningless. And there's evidence that Iginla was given an absurd amount of ice time to drive up his scoring totals. He played 25+ minutes in 16 games; 10 of these were in the last third of the season, when the Flames' season was already over.

He was pretty consistent in terms of shooting the puck in October through January - 3.2, 3.5, 3.3, and 3.7 shots per game, respectively. Then his shooting jumped up during the last three months - 4.4, 4.5, and 4.4 shots per game.

My takeaway from all this is Iginla spent the last third of the season playing tons of minutes and taking lots of shots, even though his team's fate had been sealed (due to the mid-year slump, which he contributed to). If the season ended in late February, when Naslund etc were within a few points of him, I'm not sure he'd have even been a Hart finalist.
 
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VanIslander

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Soviet MVP and NHL awards often take into account the previous spring's playoffs and international play.

Iginla was robbed.
As he was two other times in his career (in other comps).
 

GlitchMarner

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I don't know why people make such a big fuss over that Hart Trophy in particular.

There is no rule that the Art Ross Trophy winner has to win the Hart. Jagr won the Ross four years in a row and came away with one Hart. Connor McDavid had arguably as good a season (if not better) in '18 as Iginla had in '02 and he wasn't even a Hart finalist that season. The award isn't for "best player" or "leading point scorer."

A very close vote won by the guy whose team made the playoffs seems fine to me.
 

BigBadBruins7708

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Theodore winning is a joke regardless of the vote split. If he had any other logo on his chest than that CH he isn't even top 5 in votes.

To the thread, I like using 1st place votes to break the tie. I can't stand co-MVPs
 
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vadim sharifijanov

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I agree Iginla was the best player in the NHL that year, but Theodore rightfully won the Hart trophy. There are a few points against Iginla:

First, Iginla had a huge mid-season slump where he scored only 13 points in 23 games. He was tied for 143rd in scoring during that six week period. The Flames went 6-15-2. This effectively ended their playoff hopes. They were the 2nd best team in the conference through December 4th (behind Detroit, tied with Edmonton). During that slump (December 5th to January 26th), the Flames were dead last in the league. Of course, the Flames were a bad team, but having their best player disappear for a third of the season was ruinous.

Also, he didn't start to run away with the Richard and Art Ross until late in the season. As of February 27th, five players (Naslund, Thornton, Shanahan and Roenick) were within five points of him. Then he scored 17 goals and 32 points in the last 23 games of the season which, due to the Flames' midyear slump, were effectively meaningless. And there's evidence that Iginla was given an absurd amount of ice time to drive up his scoring totals. He played 25+ minutes in 16 games; 10 of these were in the last third of the season, when the Flames' season was already over.

He was pretty consistent in terms of shooting the puck in October through January - 3.2, 3.5, 3.3, and 3.7 shots per game, respectively. Then his shooting jumped up during the last three months - 4.4, 4.5, and 4.4 shots per game.

My takeaway from all this is Iginla spent the last third of the season playing tons of minutes and taking lots of shots, even though his team's fate had been sealed (due to the mid-year slump, which he contributed to). If the season ended in late February, when Naslund etc were within a few points of him, I'm not sure he'd have even been a Hart finalist.

another important piece of context is iginla probably got a lot of voter goodwill from the olympics, when he was so great on that line with sakic and simon gagne.

but another way of looking at the flames' nosedive that year is roman turek. up to november 19, when turek got his contract extension, he was probably the league's MVP. 13-2-2, 1.62 GAA, .940 SV%. i think for a lot of people he, not iginla, was the league's MVP through the first month and a half.

up to that point, iginla was running away with the scoring race early. 16 goals, 15 assists, 31 points in 19 games, six points ahead of shanahan, who had played two more games. nobody was within .2 points/game of him.

the flames were 13-4-2. then they went 4-11-6 for the rest of the calendar year. iginla scored 11 goals but only 16 points in those next 21 games. turek personally went 3-7-5, 2.93, .895.

calgary of course continued to totally suck through the second half of the season.

if you look at the first half of the season, which is neatly up to dec 31, 2001 because it was an olympic year and the first half way compressed, iginla was leading the league in goals (27, three up on bondra), points (47, four up on kapanen), and points/game (1.18, 0.04 up on alfredsson) in 40 games. he wasn't miles ahead of any of them anymore, but the other important piece of info is that almost all of the league's good players had bad first halves. the top nine as of dec 31 was iginla, kapanen in #2, and mike york, alex zhamnov, alfredsson, yashin, sundin, daze, and shanahan all tied for #3.

but if you look at the second half, jan 1 to the end of the year, iginla is at basically the same stats as before: 25 goals, 49 points in 42 games, 1.17 points/game. but he's only third in the league in goals, fourth in points, fifth in points/game. and bertuzzi blows him (and everyone else) away: 40 games, 26 goals, 34 assists, 60 points, 1.5 points/game. even in the stretch run, when iginla was mario-ing his way to the art ross, bertuzzi was significantly outscoring him at every point.

obviously, i'm remembering this from a canucks fan's perspective, so take it with a grain of salt, but imo bertuzzi in the second half, another power forward at the same position in the same division, really contextualized how awesome we *thought* iginla was in the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the season, when he was running away with the scoring race before coming back to earth.
 

ContrarianGoaltender

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I agree Iginla was the best player in the NHL that year, but Theodore rightfully won the Hart trophy. There are a few points against Iginla:

Nothing against you in particular, but I see these same points argued in basically every thread that mentions either Iginla or the 2002 Hart, and I strongly object to all of them.

First, Iginla had a huge mid-season slump where he scored only 13 points in 23 games. He was tied for 143rd in scoring during that six week period. The Flames went 6-15-2. This effectively ended their playoff hopes.

So in the period where Iginla only scored at a very similar rate to the seasonal PPG of his team's best second liner, the Flames had a winning percentage that was worse than the worst team in the NHL. This somehow indicates Iginla was not extremely valuable to a team that ended up with 79 points?

Or are you claiming that he was at fault for not scoring more in his team's losses? Because I don't think that's actually a fair criticism looking at the season overall:

Iginla's Production by Game Result, 2001-02:
In Calgary wins: 32 GP, 30-28-58, +33 (51% of team GF)
In Calgary ties: 12 GP, 8-6-14, +7 (44% of team GF)
In 1 goal losses*: 19 GP, 13-7-20, -1 (57% of team GF)
In losses by 2+: 19 GP, 1-3-4, -12 (19% of team GF)

(*-Not counting empty net goals in the score differential)

I don't see where he was letting down his team here. In addition to the mere 4 points that came in games where his team ended up losing by 2 or more, Iginla had only 4 points all season that came with his team already leading by 3 or more goals, meaning that a huge percentage of his offence came at critical times in hockey games. He also led the league in PPG in games won by his team (min. 25 GP), and completely carried the Flames' offence while also nearly breaking even in their one-goal losses.

If Iginla played for a better team, the distribution above would change and you could possibly argue his team may have been substantially better off with a few more 1 point nights at the expense of some of those 2 point games in wins. But that doesn't seem true for the Flames. During the 6-15-2 run, for example, if you arbitrarily add a goal from Iginla to every game in which he was held scoreless, he ends up with 26 points during that stretch (and 109 points on the season), but Calgary only improves to 7-12-4 and still misses the playoffs by 11 points.

Obviously it would have been nice if Iginla scored 8 additional hat tricks in 2-goal losses and thereby dragged his team into the postseason to be immediately bounced by the Red Wings, but I think it is pretty absurd to suggest he bears responsibility for Calgary not finishing higher in the standings. Take Iginla off of the Flames and they are easily a bottom-4 team in the league.

These results also indicate that if Calgary was supposedly focused on getting Iginla points rather than on winning hockey games (as has been suggested in this thread), then they did a very poor job considering how few points he actually scored in garbage time with his team losing. Even down the stretch, 22 of Iginla's final 32 points came in Calgary wins, of which only 2/9 would still have been victories if you erased all the goals he was involved in.

And there's evidence that Iginla was given an absurd amount of ice time to drive up his scoring totals. He played 25+ minutes in 16 games; 10 of these were in the last third of the season, when the Flames' season was already over.

During the month of March, the Flames lost Marc Savard, Clarke Wilm and Dave Lowry, their #5, #6 and #7 ranked forwards in ice time. So when a one-line team loses nearly all of its remaining effective veteran forward depth to injury after the trade deadline, what exactly do you think they should have done other than ride the guy leading the league in goals and points? If you were coaching the Flames would you seriously start giving major ice time to the likes of Blake Sloan and Blair Betts, or would you rely even more heavily on the only line that was doing anything at all for you offensively?

Calgary Goals Scored, Final 14 GP of 2001-02 season:
Jarome Iginla 9
Dean McAmmond 7
Craig Conroy 5
All Calgary D-men combined 4
All other Calgary forwards combined 9

It's interesting that the narrative is that the Flames must have been trying to pad Iginla's stats, when Vancouver was simultaneously also giving their best forward an equivalent amount of ice time offensively, even in the middle of a tight playoff race:

TOI, Final 14 GP of 2001-02 Season:
Bertuzzi: 17:04 ES, 5:42 PP
Iginla: 16:23 ES, 5:52 PP

Could it be that both teams were actually making optimal choices to try to win hockey games? Here's some further evidence that the answer is clearly yes: Neither of those two led in ice time among forwards during this period, Mike Modano did. Why? Just like Calgary, the Stars had suffered some key injuries to their second line (both Nieuwendyk and Langenbrunner were out), and the natural result was more ice time for their star player.

To me, either Iginla, Bertuzzi and Modano were all padding their stats with absurd ice time down the stretch, or none of them were and they were all just doing what was best for their teams.

He was pretty consistent in terms of shooting the puck in October through January - 3.2, 3.5, 3.3, and 3.7 shots per game, respectively. Then his shooting jumped up during the last three months - 4.4, 4.5, and 4.4 shots per game.

Except Iginla would go on to maintain a 4.2 shots per game rate while averaging 21:26 in TOI the following season, which makes me suspect this reflects a 24-year old emerging as an elite power forward in his breakout season rather than deliberate stat padding.

My takeaway from all this is Iginla spent the last third of the season playing tons of minutes and taking lots of shots, even though his team's fate had been sealed (due to the mid-year slump, which he contributed to). If the season ended in late February, when Naslund etc were within a few points of him, I'm not sure he'd have even been a Hart finalist.

Just a final point on Hart voting, on Feb. 27 the Habs were only 3 points ahead of Calgary in the standings, with the Flames having a game in hand. In other words, Montreal only made the playoffs by playing in the weaker Conference. Picking Theodore as the Hart winner is defensible based on his performance that year, but his team's playoff qualification shouldn't matter at all. The metrics seem to suggest Montreal and Calgary were about equally good and the difference between them was mostly strength of schedule.
 
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