2001-2002 Hart Trophy voting

[Passchendaele]

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

Salty about him kicking the B's out of the playoffs that year?

 

[MadLuke]

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

In that era it was extremely rare to have no goaltender got in the top 5 in votes (2017-2018 was the first season in a while).

The year before Cechmanek was #4

Considering that season:

Goals Saved Above Average

1.	Jose Theodore • MTL	46
2.	Patrick Roy* • COL	28
3.	Nikolai Khabibulin • TBL	24
4.	Sean Burke • PHX	21
5.	Evgeni Nabokov • SJS	19
6.	Jean-Sebastien Giguere • MDA	17
7.	Roman Cechmanek • PHI	15
8.	Martin Biron • BUF	13
9.	Dominik Hasek* • DET	13
10.	Roberto Luongo • FLA	12

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Vs goal created that year

1.	Jarome Iginla* • CGY	40.6
2.	Markus Naslund • VAN	34.9
3.	Mats Sundin* • TOR	32.6
4.	Todd Bertuzzi • VAN	32.5
5.	Glen Murray • 2TM	30.6
6.	Pavol Demitra • STL	30.4
	Keith Tkachuk • STL	30.4

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Point Shares

1.	Jose Theodore • MTL	17.4
2.	Nikolai Khabibulin • TBL	14.5
3.	Jarome Iginla* • CGY	14.4
4.	Evgeni Nabokov • SJS	13.3
5.	Patrick Roy* • COL	13.3
6.	Sean Burke • PHX	12.9
7.	Martin Biron • BUF	12.5
8.	Milan Hnilicka • ATL	12.2
9.	Rob Blake* • COL	12.2
10.	Markus Naslund • VAN	11.9

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Montreal with Theodore in goals
30W-24L-10T/O, 70 pts in 67 games (.522) with a .931 save percentage

Without Theodore:
6W-10L-2T/O, 14 pts in 18 games (.388), with a .896 save percentage.

A shot against the 2001-2002 Montreal Canadians had 50% more chance to be a goal when Theodore was not in the net than when he was and winning 35% higher point rate with Theodore, that a giant impact.

The making the playoff with that team plus the level of separation in impact for is team in is position, I think he win wearing most jersey in the league, that season was ridiculous.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

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.

Of course, nothing personal - let's try to figure out the right answer here.

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.

There's no question that Iginla was very important to his team. He was quite probably more important than any other forward/defenseman in the league that year. But the point was, his offense disappeared during a crucial part of the season (games 29 through 51). Nobody really thought the Flames would maintain their hot start, but that streak very nearly brought them out of playoff contention entirely (they still had a faint chance, until that faded away during another Iginla cold streak later on - see below). By the end of that first cold streak (January 26th), the Flames had fallen from T-2nd to 11th in the conference.

I think your point is the Flames were so bad, it wouldn't have made much of a difference if Iginla scored more during that stretch. I'm not sure I agree. During that cold stretch, he was scoreless in 15 out of 23 games. The Flames were 6-15-2 overall during those 23 games (and 3-11-1 in the fifteen where he was held scoreless). Sure, some of them would have been lost anyway, even if Iginla got a point or two (such as a 6-1 loss to the Leafs or a 4-0 loss to St Louis). But there were three one-goal losses (excluding empty net goals), one tie, and two crucial losses against division rival Vancouver (both of which were two-goal losses, but only due to an insurance marker from the Canucks with less than 4 minutes left in both games).

After, Iginla started playing well again, and the Flames started winning (he scored 23 points in 14 games, and the Flames went 7-5-2). This was right after his very impressive Olympics tournament. Maybe the Flames could have made the playoffs if Iginla maintained that level of play in mid March (as Bertuzzi did - see below). Thanks to the partial comeback, as of March 10th, the Flames had 67 points - six points out of the last spot. They were unlikely to bounce back with 16 games left, but it was still possible.

Iginla then proceeded to record one assist over the next six games (five losses and a tie). Now they're 12 points out of the playoffs with ten games to go - this ended their faint playoff hopes. And in those six games, there was a tie (against the Panthers - the 2nd worst team in the east), two one-goal losses, and a two-goal loss where Columbus (another team even the Flames should have been able to beat) scored an insurance marker with less than five minutes left.

The point is - there were enough games where his offense could have made a difference that the Flames could have remained competitive. The precedent suggests that a player on a non-playoff teams needs to at least keep his team competitive until the end of the season. The last time a player on a non-playoff team won the Hart (Lemieux in 1988), they finished a single point out - they were competitive until the end (and fought hard, winning 8 of their final 11 games - with Lemieux scoring an absurd 33 points in those 11 games). Prior to that (Bathgate in 1959), that team again finished a single point out.

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.

I think it's a stretch to attribute the increase in Iginla's icetime to the the injuries to Savard, Wilm and Lowry. Savard was by far the best of those three, and he only missed the last ten games of the season (Iginla's ice time rose well before that). Besides, he was a centre so, if anything, his ice time would have been given to Craig Conroy. Wilm and Lowry were depth forwards with minimal offensive talent (they scored 18 points and 13 points that year) - and Wilm was a centre so, again, his ice time would probably be given to Conroy.

The difference is, unlike Iginla, Bertuzzi and Modano were both in the hunt for a playoff spot (the Canucks got the 8th seed, and the Stars finished 10th). Bertuzzi scored 33 points in the last 17 games of the season and was a big reason (though not the only reason) the Canucks went 13-3-1. As of March 9th (before those 17 games), the Canucks were 10th in the conference, only a single point ahead of the Flames (with the same number of games played). And Bertuzzi averaged 1:44 less per game than Iginla over that period.

I realize the Flames had an obligation to ice the best team possible. I'm not saying that Iginla should only have played 16 minutes per game during that final, futile stretch. But he didn't really run away with the Art Ross until the final 10 games of the season (when the Flames knew they weren't going to qualify for the playoffs, which was, in my opinion, at least partly due to Iginla's two cold streaks). He still had five players (Naslund, Sakic, Oatse, Jagr, Francis) within ten points of him, and then he ran away with 16 points during the final 10 games, averaging nearly 24 minutes a game.

And since we're comparing Iginla to Theodore - one point to emphasize is Theodore was very consistent all year. His worst ten-game stretch (and I think we'd both agree that there can be a lot of variability in a sample as small as ten games) was December 28th to January 21st, when he stopped 250 of 276 shots (90.6% - a fraction below league average). And he stopped 565 of 599 shots (94.3%) during the Habs' crucial final 20 games (and they still only went 11-5-4 despite getting that type of goaltending).

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.

But Iginla's ice time was nice and consistent in 2003 and 2004 (21:26 and 21:18). 2003 was a disappointing season for him, but he was excellent in 2004 and his coach didn't need to play him 24+ minutes a game to allow the 6th seeded Flames to make the playoffs for the first time in 8 seasons. Iginla's maximum ice time in 2004 (when the Flames were fighting for a playoff spot until the end) was 25:41, and he had 13 games in 2002 with more than that. Iginla didn't need absurd ice time during a crucial playoff push in 2004, so why did he need it in 2002 when their season was effectively over? (Granted it was a different coach).

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.

It's a stretch to say it shouldn't matter "at all". That's the point of the regular season, after all. I'm not opposed to players on non-playoff teams winning trophies. Lemieux deserved the 1988 Hart. McDavid probably deserved it in 2018 (at least he should have been a finalist). Luongo deserved the Vezina in 2004. But I don't think it's wrong to use playoff qualification as a tiebreaker when there are two deserving candidates.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

didn't know where else to put this but



in which the age of social media has given us a credentialed writer filling out his awards ballot with hot takes to help write clickbait

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

But the point was, his offense disappeared during a crucial part of the season (games 29 through 51).

I understand that is your key criticism of Iginla's season, but I still don't see why it matters nearly as much as you are claiming.

First of all, streaks seem a bit arbitrary. Is 0-2-0-2-0-2-0-2 inherently better than 2-2-2-2-0-0-0-0? Points in game 1 are worth the same as points in game 29, 51 or 82.

Secondly, I definitely don't see that kind of slump as remotely disqualifying for anybody's Hart chances. In 2003-04 Martin St. Louis had a very similar stretch of 14 points in 24 games. This, however, is rarely remarked upon, and everybody treats St. Louis' Hart as fully deserved, probably because other players on the Lighting picked him up and carried the team to a record of 9-10-4-1 in those games.

My main counterargument is that your specific focus on Iginla's game 29-51 without considering similar examples from other players is effectively holding him to a completely different standard by not taking into account the historically low levels of secondary scoring from Iginla's teammates that season.

I think your point is the Flames were so bad, it wouldn't have made much of a difference if Iginla scored more during that stretch. I'm not sure I agree. During that cold stretch, he was scoreless in 15 out of 23 games. The Flames were 6-15-2 overall during those 23 games (and 3-11-1 in the fifteen where he was held scoreless). Sure, some of them would have been lost anyway, even if Iginla got a point or two (such as a 6-1 loss to the Leafs or a 4-0 loss to St Louis). But there were three one-goal losses (excluding empty net goals), one tie, and two crucial losses against division rival Vancouver (both of which were two-goal losses, but only due to an insurance marker from the Canucks with less than 4 minutes left in both games).

The game log of every player ever is littered with games where one goal would have changed the result, sure. But if you are still going to argue that Iginla didn't produce enough in close losses, why were his numbers so strong in precisely that scenario throughout the year?

I posted splits by game result in my last post. To recap, in one goal losses he scored at a 56 goal pace per 82 games, accounting for 37% of his team's total goals scored. He also got a point on 57% of his team's offence and was just -1 despite his team being outscored 61-35, including 7 empty net goals against (and it's probably reasonable to assume Iginla was on the ice for all 7). If you think he should have scored another goal in 5-6 more games then OK, but that means you are blaming him for not scoring at a goal-per-game pace and not individually accounting for nearly half of his team's goals in those key contests (and even that on its own wouldn't have been enough to get the Flames even close to the playoffs).

If you want to know what it looks like when a player maybe should be criticized for not doing enough in his team's close losses, let's go back to our previous Hart Trophy comparable:

Martin St. Louis, 2003-04:

Tie games: 8 GP, 1-4-5, -2
OT losses: 6 GP, 0-7-7, -3
1G losses: 11 GP, 3-1-4, -7

In games tied or lost by one goal (excluding empty-netters) in 2003-04, Martin St. Louis scored 4 goals and 12 assists for 16 points in 27 games, being involved in 36% of his team's offence. He was also -12 in those games combined (his team gave up 3 EN goals).

In games tied or lost by one goal in 2001-02 (no EN), Jarome Iginla scored 21 goals and 13 assists for 34 points in 31 games, being involved in 51% of his team's offence. He was +6 in those games combined (despite his team giving up 7 EN GA).

Only one of those two players is still nitpicked to this day for not doing more to help his team win close games.

After, Iginla started playing well again, and the Flames started winning (he scored 23 points in 14 games, and the Flames went 7-5-2). This was right after his very impressive Olympics tournament. Maybe the Flames could have made the playoffs if Iginla maintained that level of play in mid March (as Bertuzzi did - see below).

7-5-2 is on pace for 94 points/82, in other words exactly the record needed to tie the Canucks for the final playoff spot, so even when Iginla was going off at a 1.64 PPG the Flames didn't exactly have much margin. If you look at his season outside of the two cold streaks you have identified, he scored at a 1.55 PPG. I agree Calgary could maybe have made the playoffs if he maintained that play, but that requires Iginla scoring at around 1.6 PPG all season long (which corresponds to 131 points/82).

If you think the Flames missed the playoffs because Iginla didn't maintain his scoring, and he didn't deserve the Hart because his team missed the playoffs, then it follows that Iginla didn't deserve the Hart because he didn't score 130 points in the second-lowest scoring NHL season since 1956.

I think it's a stretch to attribute the increase in Iginla's icetime to the the injuries to Savard, Wilm and Lowry. Savard was by far the best of those three, and he only missed the last ten games of the season (Iginla's ice time rose well before that). Besides, he was a centre so, if anything, his ice time would have been given to Craig Conroy. Wilm and Lowry were depth forwards with minimal offensive talent (they scored 18 points and 13 points that year) - and Wilm was a centre so, again, his ice time would probably be given to Conroy.

Sorry, forgot to mention a key fact backing up my point here, which is that Rob Niedermayer also missed significant time in the second half of the 2001-02 season before returning shortly before Savard was injured. As a result, Calgary played 30 of their final 39 games while missing one or both of their 3rd and 4th best forwards, which had a critical impact on the team's already very limited depth.

Iginla's period of increased ice time seems to correspond exactly to this period. Niedermayer was injured on Jan 8, and from the start of the season though Jan 8 Iginla averaged 21:15 in ice time, including 15:45 at even strength and 0:13 on the PK. From Jan 9 onward Iginla averaged 23:35 (17:31 at ES and 1:06 on the PK). Iginla's PP time actually dropped slightly, from 5:17 to 4:58.

The fact that Iginla's increase was exclusively ES/PK supports injury replacement being a key factor (whereas a boost on the PP would be predicted by the "stat-padding" theory). Calgary's PK TOI leaders among forwards in the first half were Wilm (2:51), Lowry (2:04) and Niedermayer (2:01), all of whom were impacted by injuries late in the year, forcing the rest of the team to pick up the slack while shorthanded. Conroy's ice time was indeed up as well (20:15 to 21:40, also increasing at ES/PK but dropping on the PP), but his TOI did not in fact increase as much as Iginla's in the second half.

I'm not saying that Iginla should only have played 16 minutes per game during that final, futile stretch. But he didn't really run away with the Art Ross until the final 10 games of the season (when the Flames knew they weren't going to qualify for the playoffs, which was, in my opinion, at least partly due to Iginla's two cold streaks). He still had five players (Naslund, Sakic, Oatse, Jagr, Francis) within ten points of him, and then he ran away with 16 points during the final 10 games, averaging nearly 24 minutes a game.

But Iginla didn't run away with the Art Ross, Naslund actually closed the gap to 6 by season's end. He ran away with the Richard, sure, but he could have skipped his last 17 games and still won that trophy (not to mention he led pretty much wire-to-wire). And regardless of the final scoring gap, a season of 52 goals and 96 points in the scoring context of 2001-02 while going +27 on a team that was -13 at even strength should be impressive enough to put a player in strong Hart contention anyway.

Iginla's maximum ice time in 2004 (when the Flames were fighting for a playoff spot until the end) was 25:41, and he had 13 games in 2002 with more than that. Iginla didn't need absurd ice time during a crucial playoff push in 2004, so why did he need it in 2002 when their season was effectively over?

Again, why are you assuming Iginla personally needed the ice time, instead of the Calgary Flames needing more Iginla?

Calgary Goals Scored Without Iginla on the Ice:

2001-02: 75
2002-03: 98
2003-04: 108

I keep mentioning secondary scoring because 75 is an absurdly low number. I would be interested to know how many times a star forward has ever had less off-ice secondary scoring support than that (even after adjusting for DPE scoring levels). I looked up Bure in 2000-01 and Jagr in 1998-99 as examples of elite players carrying a large share of a weak team's offence around the same period, and both had more support despite substantially more TOI:

Bure, 2000-01: 78 off-ice goals, 26:52 TOI
Jagr, 1998-99: 83 off-ice goals, 25:51 TOI

And here is the same number for some of the other players mentioned in this discussion, who get the bonus points because they participated in playoff races:

Team Goals Scored While Off the Ice:
Bertuzzi, 2001-02: 139
Modano, 2001-02: 118
St. Louis, 2003-04: 115

It's a stretch to say it shouldn't matter "at all". That's the point of the regular season, after all. I'm not opposed to players on non-playoff teams winning trophies. Lemieux deserved the 1988 Hart. McDavid probably deserved it in 2018 (at least he should have been a finalist). Luongo deserved the Vezina in 2004. But I don't think it's wrong to use playoff qualification as a tiebreaker when there are two deserving candidates.

If all things are equal then sure, but according to Hockey Reference's SRS rating 9 of the 13 best teams in the league in 2001-02 played in the Western Conference. I still maintain (as a Habs fan) that Montreal's playoff qualification was entirely based on the external factor of unbalanced conference/schedule luck, which seems like an odd thing to use as an award tiebreaker in that type of scenario.

I'd have no objections to a claim that Theodore deserved the Hart because he had 46 GSAA and very possibly contributed more to his team than Iginla (even though I think that Iginla does have a pretty good case himself). But saying that Theodore deserved the Hart based on reasons like playing in a much easier conference or his 29 worst games being clustered less tightly than Iginla's isn't nearly as convincing to me.

 

[Johnny Engine]

didn't know where else to put this but



in which the age of social media has given us a credentialed writer filling out his awards ballot with hot takes to help write clickbait

A few things on this:

- I don't think "clickbait" is a good way to describe the work of someone who writes behind a paywall. Yeah, the Athletic does need to drum up attention in order for people to want to subscribe, and any subscriber is also going to choose whether to read certain stories in their feed, but I don't think the classic Uproxx model describes what he's doing here (promising something mindblowing in a link to get the click at all costs and then putting very little effort into the content). Of course, "clickbait" often means "something I don't like on the internet" in the same way "fake news" does, but we're better than that here.
- I also don't think his award ballots are dishonest to his own line of thinking, which I suppose is the benefit of being a math geek. The guy developed a WAR model originally for gambling purposes, and uses it for absolutely everything. This doesn't speak to the validity of his opinions (more on that in a minute), but if a media company hires you to write "here's what I learned from looking at spreadsheets" articles every day, and you get an award ballot, you should probably fill it out based on what you know, right?
- That said, he might be my least favourite writer within the orbit of younger, mainly internet based group that's active today. Total turd in the punchbowl of any podcast conversation he shows up in, and while you'd probably not lose money betting on his numerical conclusions, every time he goes off script and starts giving his opinions freeform, he sounds like he's barely familiar with the subject. This isn't uncommon when it comes to hockey journalists (there's definitely a quality gap, for example, between the insider knowledge someone like Friedge likes to pass along, and the ideas he comes up with himself), but I find this guy's free jazz particularly grating.
- Why in the world are we expecting every single Hart ballot to have the Art Ross winner on it? If the knock on this guy is that he relies on numbers only to make his decision, how is sorting by points and throwing in a goalie even remotely a legitimate contribution to awards voting? I admitedly didn't watch a whole lot of Draisaitl or Carlson this year (and a great deal of my pre-pandemic memory is wiped right now), but I was under the impression that everyone knows they kind of suck defensively, and that is certainly something you have to consider.
- Transparency and elaboration is ultimately good, right?
- The dude's endured a fair amount of Twitter harrassment, which is not cool and may have spurred some further talking back. I think he, in particular bugs people because of his one-dimensional expertise and his annoying personality, but Twitter harrassment is still a terrible way to deal with that.

 

[ESH]

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.

really not sure what you mean by this. Iginla was one of the most physically dominant players along the boards and in the corners that the league has seen. Iginla did the hard work for his line.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

didn't know where else to put this but



in which the age of social media has given us a credentialed writer filling out his awards ballot with hot takes to help write clickbait

You could have put it in the 400-post ongoing thread on the general NHL board.

It doesn't belong here.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

A few things on this:

- I don't think "clickbait" is a good way to describe the work of someone who writes behind a paywall. Yeah, the Athletic does need to drum up attention in order for people to want to subscribe, and any subscriber is also going to choose whether to read certain stories in their feed, but I don't think the classic Uproxx model describes what he's doing here (promising something mindblowing in a link to get the click at all costs and then putting very little effort into the content). Of course, "clickbait" often means "something I don't like on the internet" in the same way "fake news" does, but we're better than that here.
- I also don't think his award ballots are dishonest to his own line of thinking, which I suppose is the benefit of being a math geek. The guy developed a WAR model originally for gambling purposes, and uses it for absolutely everything. This doesn't speak to the validity of his opinions (more on that in a minute), but if a media company hires you to write "here's what I learned from looking at spreadsheets" articles every day, and you get an award ballot, you should probably fill it out based on what you know, right?
- That said, he might be my least favourite writer within the orbit of younger, mainly internet based group that's active today. Total turd in the punchbowl of any podcast conversation he shows up in, and while you'd probably not lose money betting on his numerical conclusions, every time he goes off script and starts giving his opinions freeform, he sounds like he's barely familiar with the subject. This isn't uncommon when it comes to hockey journalists (there's definitely a quality gap, for example, between the insider knowledge someone like Friedge likes to pass along, and the ideas he comes up with himself), but I find this guy's free jazz particularly grating.
- Why in the world are we expecting every single Hart ballot to have the Art Ross winner on it? If the knock on this guy is that he relies on numbers only to make his decision, how is sorting by points and throwing in a goalie even remotely a legitimate contribution to awards voting? I admitedly didn't watch a whole lot of Draisaitl or Carlson this year (and a great deal of my pre-pandemic memory is wiped right now), but I was under the impression that everyone knows they kind of suck defensively, and that is certainly something you have to consider.
- Transparency and elaboration is ultimately good, right?
- The dude's endured a fair amount of Twitter harrassment, which is not cool and may have spurred some further talking back. I think he, in particular bugs people because of his one-dimensional expertise and his annoying personality, but Twitter harrassment is still a terrible way to deal with that.

that's all reasonable. obviously i didn't go looking for his explanation but if his ballot was honest, as you say, then i guess it's just a methodology question which i have no problem with. just the way the tweet was presented, maybe it's his personality as you point out, i've never heard of this guy before, just felt like the other definition of clickbait: content driven by sensationalism/controversy/contrarianism for its own sake; larry brooks, to name an older example. but again, i didn't go clicking.

You could have put it in the 400-post ongoing thread on the general NHL board.

It doesn't belong here.

may i ask why? is it because it's current events? something else?

i felt like because we endlessly argue about the validity of awards voting results, including this thread being led with that, it felt appropriate to discuss the professional weaponizing of the awards ballot public reveal.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

may i ask why? is it because it's current events? something else?

What's the title of this thread?

And what was every single post (prior to yours) in the thread about?

 

[GMR]

I don't believe the MVP in any sport should go to someone on a non-playoff team. Yes, the guy may have been valuable to his team, but so what?

I still don't get how Shanahan got more votes than Lidstrom in 2002.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

What's the title of this thread?

And what was every single post (prior to yours) in the thread about?

i was confused about what "here" meant in your post being that you told me to take it to the main board in the same breath. anywho... i'll stop now.

 

[CaptBrannigan]

[QUOTE="ContrarianGoaltender, post: snip to save space[/QUOTE]
Good post. I don’t think the believe that Iginla is the only one “nitpicked” is really how it happens though. I’ve only ever seen those things brought up in response to somebody saying Iginla was robbed or the flawed ‘missing vote’ thing.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable (and far from picking nits) to get that down into the details when it’s to disprove the long standing belief some folks have he was done wrong when not only was he not robbed but Theodore comes out ahead in nearly all objective comparisons.

I think the folks on this board and topic have given it more thought and breakdown than the actual voters!

 

[plusandminus]

I think both seem about equally worthy.
It could have gone either way.
The results depended on which 62 persons that voted. Replace some of them, and we might see either Iginla or Theodore win by more than one point.
It also depends on what system for point allocation being used. If only ranking 1-4, Theodore seem to have won by more than one point. If using 9-7-5-3-1 rather then 10-7-5-3-1, Iginla would have won by one point.
It's just a voting done at a certain time, by 62 persons, using a certain point system, resulting in basically a tie.

I know Theodore got 100 % of that year's Hart Trophy, and Iginla got 0 % of it. That's a fact. 1-0 to Theodore, and it will forever be in the history books. But really... would it be hard to consider both about equally worthy?

Regarding leaving players out on ballots...
Who knows why 4 voters didn't rank Theodore top-5? Maybe they honestly didn't think he deserved to be. Same with the guy who left out Iginla (unless proven to have been done to manipulate, which it sounds here as it was?).
(And regarding the Draisaitl example, I think it was interesting and a good example of a voter of today leaving out a player, just like four did with Theodore and one with Iginla. If it's off-topic, a moderator is welcome to delete this parenthesis.)

 

[plusandminus]

Regarding MVP voting in general... How do we even define MVP? Was Roy really less valuable for his team than Theodore? Both were considered about equally good, according to Vezina votes (same point) and All Star Votes (Roy won). Wouldn't they actually bring about the same value for their team? But the difference is that one had better teammates and harder internal competition, while the other had worse teammates and lesser internal competition. So Roy got "punished" for only helping his team finish top-5 in the standings, because the 32 wins he contributed to was considered less worth than the 30 wins Theodore contributed to?
COL had the by far lowest GA in the league. MTL was 15th. But Roy didn't outplay Aebischer the same way Theodore outplayed his backups, so he wasn't as valuable?

 

[CaptBrannigan]

Regarding MVP voting in general... How do we even define MVP? Was Roy really less valuable for his team than Theodore? Both were considered about equally good, according to Vezina votes (same point) and All Star Votes (Roy won). Wouldn't they actually bring about the same value for their team? But the difference is that one had better teammates and harder internal competition, while the other had worse teammates and lesser internal competition. So Roy got "punished" for only helping his team finish top-5 in the standings, because the 32 wins he contributed to was considered less worth than the 30 wins Theodore contributed to?
COL had the by far lowest GA in the league. MTL was 15th. But Roy didn't outplay Aebischer the same way Theodore outplayed his backups, so he wasn't as valuable?

I agree the question of how to quantify what is most valuable is tough. Personally, I can’t see a non-playoff participant as the MVP, because to me that’s why these guys play; to make the playoffs and have a chance at the Cup. How “valuable” can a contribution be if you’re not even top 8 in your conference?

Now I recognize that that is subjective and I do leave room for just an insane season where it’s possible.

I also like to view it through the “what if he was removed from the team” lens, but I’ve found that normally that’s an indictment on the team and not really a measure of value, again, at least how it seems to me.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Regarding MVP voting in general... How do we even define MVP? Was Roy really less valuable for his team than Theodore? Both were considered about equally good, according to Vezina votes (same point) and All Star Votes (Roy won). Wouldn't they actually bring about the same value for their team? But the difference is that one had better teammates and harder internal competition, while the other had worse teammates and lesser internal competition. So Roy got "punished" for only helping his team finish top-5 in the standings, because the 32 wins he contributed to was considered less worth than the 30 wins Theodore contributed to?
COL had the by far lowest GA in the league. MTL was 15th. But Roy didn't outplay Aebischer the same way Theodore outplayed his backups, so he wasn't as valuable?

I can see that argument regarding Aebischer - who was clearly ready and able to competently serve as a #1 goaltender - whereas Hackett was trending down. And obviously Theodore saw a lot more rubber than Roy too, at all situations but on the Penalty Kill, which is where he drew separation in terms of save percentage.

	Even-Strength	Penalty Kill	Powerplay
Roy	.933 (1261 SA)	.896 (308)	.900 (60)
Theodore	.931 (1608 SA)	.915 (295)	1.000 (69)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I don’t think the voters necessarily got it wrong, splitting the All-Star and the 1st Team selections.

It’s also possible that had Montreal missed the playoffs, Iginla still doesn’t win. It’s possible the media narrative shifts back to what it was for much of the season, pre-Salt Lake City. Colorado was shutout 10 times, and held to 1 goal another 13 times, but still managed to take 7 points from those games with Roy in net (without which would have landed them in a tie with Edmonton for 8th in the Conference).

I think the whole race played out pretty similarly to 2011, with it seeming to be a Sedin (Iginla) and Stamkos (Roy) race with just a handful of games left, until a dark horse contender on the periphery in Perry (Theodore) heated up to boost his team into an unexpected playoff spot while St. Louis (Sakic) started to steal buzz from his teammate.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Who knows why 4 voters didn't rank Theodore top-5? Maybe they honestly didn't think he deserved to be. Same with the guy who left out Iginla (unless proven to have been done to manipulate, which it sounds here as it was?).

I'm speculating, but you see some of this in baseball with pitchers. Sometimes people won't vote for a pitcher for the MVP award because pitchers already have "their own" award. (I admit this is going back a while, but in 1999 Pedro Martinez lost an MVP award because he was left off two ballots entirely).

Even when Carey Price won the Hart in 2015, he was left off two ballots. Hasek was left off one in 1997 (but he was on every ballot in 1998). I'd attribute someone not voting for Theodore in 2002 to that belief (as opposed to any bias against him in particular).

 

[quoipourquoi]

I'm speculating, but you see some of this in baseball with pitchers. Sometimes people won't vote for a pitcher for the MVP award because pitchers already have "their own" award. (I admit this is going back a while, but in 1999 Pedro Martinez lost an MVP award because he was left off two ballots entirely).

Even when Carey Price won the Hart in 2015, he was left off two ballots. Hasek was left off one in 1997 (but he was on every ballot in 1998). I'd attribute someone not voting for Theodore in 2002 to that belief (as opposed to any bias against him in particular).

I don’t know that that is the case for Theodore; he was left off of four of the 5-3-1 All-Star ballots in addition to four of the 10-7-5-3-1 Hart ballots.

Obviously the goaltending position was loaded that year, but it’s possible (maybe even expected) that the 4 voters who did not see Theodore as a top-3 goaltender also did not see him as a top-5 player. By contrast, Iginla was a unanimous selection on the All-Star team, so I don’t know that any one voter undervalued him the way I would say about Theodore (with respect to Roy, Burke, and Khabibulin - who may have all had better seasons than any of the Vezina winners between 2000-2004).

 

[Sentinel]

I am absolutely fine with Theodore winning Hart that year. I wish he had a better career than he did.

 

[Zobitembois]

Thanks to this thread. I realised Iginla is younger than Theodore. Mind mildly blown.