2011 - Worst Norris Trophy Winner?

[Nalyd Psycho]

Last I checked, Chara was the only player top 20 in points, +/- and minutes

 

[MXD]

The coach makes that choice for a reason - if he thought it would be beneficial for Yandle to have more PK minutes (i.e. that Yandle would be good at it) - then he would give him more PK minutes!

I tend to see this in another light...
If Yandle doesn't play the PK, he either gets to...
- Play more minutes at ES/PP, where is value is much higher
or
- Play less minutes overall, thus is probably "better" in the long run.

Many see the PK players as being somewhat interchangeable. Give only 3 minutes a game to Yandle on the PK, and his TOI ends un in the high 26 mins range. Maybe Phoenix's coach want him better rested?

 

[Dalton]

I think Chara wins. Lidstrom hasn't won for a couple years and is not better today than than the last two seasons. Boston is a good team defensively and it isn't all Thomas. Chara has stats for the lazy voters.

I doubt this is the worst Norris winner ever. It's just what happens when no one stands out. Somebody has to win by default at least. I expect Chara as a recent winner since Keith is not doing as well apparently.

I remember reading a write-up after one of Lidstrom's wins that he was the default winner as no one really stood out so voters went for the previous winner. This year is like that maybe as things stand today.

IMHO

 

[Duke749]

Some instances this is true, but has to be looked at case by case. Take the case of Lidstrom during the regular season in his Norris years, Chelios often had more SHTOI than Lidstrom. Would anyone believe 40 year old Chelios was better defensively than Lidstrom? Of course not. When the playoffs started Lidstrom had the same SHTOI as Chelios. The coach thought it was better to rest Lidstrom and use him in other times during the regular season and lean on him when the team needed in the playoffs.

In the case of Enstrom and Yandle, having the 6th highest SHTOI on their teams is telling (both under a minute). Their coaches simply do not have enough faith to make them regular penalty killers. If these teams goto the playoffs, Yandle and Enstrom are not going from 6th to close to 1st.

I look at Letang more favorably despite being fourth (2:06 SHTOI) on his own team. Letang has two primary defensive defensemen ahead of him on the PK in Orpik and Michalek who would be ineffective if they were not killing most of the penalties. Paul Martin is also ahead of him who is a great two way defenseman but Letang is playing a good amount of time on the penalty kill while contributing offensively. The coach isn’t afraid to put Letang in defensive situations unlike Yandle and Enstrom, Letang this season is clearly above Yandle and Enstrom for this reason.

People need to distinguish the difference between not getting much SH time, and not being good defensively. By your logic, Enstrom has gotten worse defensively since his rookie year and that you think Freddy Meyer is better defensively then Enstrom just because he gets like 4 more seconds of SH time.

Letang has the benefit of playing with a DFD in Orpik where as Enstrom plays with probably the most offensive-minded defenseman in the game today in Byfuglien. There's a reason Enstrom is paired with Buff. He's the guy the coach trust more to cover for him then anyone else. If Enstrom was paired with Bogosian he would be going against the other teams top line every shift and would likely be getting more PK time.

And I honestly don't know how you can give an assesment on a player based on ice time if you have never watched him play. I haven't seen several Norris canidates play this year but i'm not going to talk like I know how they play. You have to watch players a lot more when it comes to defense. Looking at stats doesn't take you very far. Yes you can get a good reading on how someone is offensively by looking at stats, but there isn't much you can look at for defense.

Tonight Enstrom made two great plays defensively, one on a breakaway, and another in a 2 on 1 situation where he blocked the pass and still had the poise to get up, retrieve the puck, and make an outlet pass. Enstrom is by far our best defenseman defensively.

If you don't think he deserves the Norris because you don't think he gets enough SH time that's fine, but don't think for one second that is an indication of his defense. I've seen plenty of Kris Letang this year and I don't think he is better defensively then Enstrom. I've seen him get beat in his own end in about 10 games as much as i've seen Enstrom get beat in his own end in over 50 games.

Also, the reason a lot of people think this might be a weak Norris class is because not a lot of people know much about some of the front runners. Some guys plays in places that do not get a lot of attention nationally. Enstrom plays in Atlanta, Yandle in Pheonix, and Vishnovsky in Anaheim. Not exactly places that people pay a lot of attention to.

 

[jkrx]

This is an important consideration and Norris voters will take it into account. Before anyone points to fact that Lidstrom's +/- is poor due to playing against other teams top lines....well, so do other top pairing Dmen in the league too including having to face Lidstrom's own team!

Lidstrom is having a great offensive year but not sure he is the best at his position this year....it is wide open.

I would say Lidström has been almost as effective as usual defensively. The only thing I could complain about is age related like speed but its not like he gets caught out of position a lot or even at all. He also plays more than the rest of the defense in Detroit.

Best defenseman Ive seen this year (sadly I havent been able to watch as much as I like to) have been (not ranked in order)

Chara
Lidström
Yandle
Doughty
Burns

 

[jkrx]

People need to distinguish the difference between not getting much SH time, and not being good defensively. By your logic, Enstrom has gotten worse defensively since his rookie year and that you think Freddy Meyer is better defensively then Enstrom just because he gets like 4 more seconds of SH time.

Letang has the benefit of playing with a DFD in Orpik where as Enstrom plays with probably the most offensive-minded defenseman in the game today in Byfuglien. There's a reason Enstrom is paired with Buff. He's the guy the coach trust more to cover for him then anyone else. If Enstrom was paired with Bogosian he would be going against the other teams top line every shift and would likely be getting more PK time.

And I honestly don't know how you can give an assesment on a player based on ice time if you have never watched him play. I haven't seen several Norris canidates play this year but i'm not going to talk like I know how they play. You have to watch players a lot more when it comes to defense. Looking at stats doesn't take you very far. Yes you can get a good reading on how someone is offensively by looking at stats, but there isn't much you can look at for defense.

Tonight Enstrom made two great plays defensively, one on a breakaway, and another in a 2 on 1 situation where he blocked the pass and still had the poise to get up, retrieve the puck, and make an outlet pass. Enstrom is by far our best defenseman defensively.

If you don't think he deserves the Norris because you don't think he gets enough SH time that's fine, but don't think for one second that is an indication of his defense. I've seen plenty of Kris Letang this year and I don't think he is better defensively then Enstrom. I've seen him get beat in his own end in about 10 games as much as i've seen Enstrom get beat in his own end in over 50 games.

Also, the reason a lot of people think this might be a weak Norris class is because not a lot of people know much about some of the front runners. Some guys plays in places that do not get a lot of attention nationally. Enstrom plays in Atlanta, Yandle in Pheonix, and Vishnovsky in Anaheim. Not exactly places that people pay a lot of attention to.

Enström is very underrated, havent watched him alot so didnt include him in my list.

 

[Gobo]

Enstrom
Lidstrom
Visnovsky
Chara
Letang/Yandle

 

[nik jr]

What's your opinion of Jimmy Howard? He's been outstanding in several of the Red Wing games that I've watched this year, and has been a key piece of their success IMO. Would it be a stretch to say he could get considered for a Vezina nomination?

absolutely no chance for howard to be a vezina finalist.

has been average or more likely below average, imo.

His +/- has already been discussed in another thread and if you watched him play you would know that ALOT of those GAs comes from mistakes by his partner and not by Lidström himself. Now you would have a point if he were -19 when almost everyone else were +10 or above.

lidstrom's GA is high b/c he does not control play like he used to do. thus he spends more time in his own end.

lidstrom has usually played with a partner who is not very good defensively, usually also with mediocre goaltending and usually against top competition.

structure around him is also not as good as it used to be, which exacerbates every problem.



lidstrom's ESGA+SHGA per season
'10: 57 in 82 games
'09: 52 in 78 games
'08: 44 in 76 games
'07: 48 in 80 games
'06: 59 in 80 games
'04: 55 in 81 games
'03: 59 in 82 games

'11: on pace for 73 in 82 games

lidstrom's ESTOI is lower than it has been in a long time. actually 6th among DRW d-men in ESTOI per game, which is one of the reasons his ES scoring is low.

lidstrom's TOI per game this season is 23:40, a couple of minutes lower than usual for the last 15 years.

 

[zeus3007*]

Its closer than most years. Lidstrom, Chara, and a young guy (any of Yandle, Enstrom or Letang) will be the nominees, in my opinion.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'm just going back to the origianl post (whcih was by you btw) that said that no one was stickign out and the top 10 scorers ahvign only 3 guys in the plus.

My main point is that a lot of guys, not pointing you out, go back and look to statistical dominance to separate guys in voting and this is less likely to happen with the role of Dmen today and the narrowing of the gap in terms of the best teams and worst teams. The 70's was sued as a reference point to compare, especially with those Hab and Bruin teams from the early 70's.

I personally think that Lidstrom will end up with the ward, partly due to play and partly due to nostalgia and the fact that it might be his last season as well.

I'm not saying that i agree with this but rather how the voters will view the field and vote, kinda like Henrik last year and all the talk about eastern bias, my bet is that at least a few voters voted for Henrik to battle this notion.

Its true, in the original post I mentioned +/-, which I still think is a more viable stat for Norris voting than any other award. But I never mentioned anything about past numbers in comparison at all. I must have missed the bridge step of your point that ended up in the 70s.

That said, I think you may be right that if no one really steps up Lidstrom would win it for the reasons you mention.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

His +/- has already been discussed in another thread and if you watched him play you would know that ALOT of those GAs comes from mistakes by his partner and not by Lidström himself. Now you would have a point if he were -19 when almost everyone else were +10 or above.

So only Lidstrom's teammates make mistakes?

Right, how unfortunate he has to play with those stiffs on the Red Wings.

 

[doofydoofer08*]

Lidstrom or Chara.

either one of them lidstrom has more points but chara is the best d man in the league and is starting to get some points

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Howard, outside of about 10 games, has been dreadful this year. And outside of Lidstrom, their defense certainly has not helped him too much - but I would say Howard's SV% (bottom of the league) is indicative of his play as a whole.

absolutely no chance for howard to be a vezina finalist.

has been average or more likely below average, imo.

Interesting. I've obviously seen an inordinate amount of Howard's good games it would seem. [And right now, Bruins fans are screaming that I've seen an inordinate amount of Tim Thomas' bad ones, to harken back to recent discussion!] I recall watching a few Wings games in a pretty short period of time where Howard ranged from good to outstanding. By the sounds if it, that hot streak was an abberation.

 

[seventieslord]

I tend to see this in another light...
If Yandle doesn't play the PK, he either gets to...
- Play more minutes at ES/PP, where is value is much higher
or
- Play less minutes overall, thus is probably "better" in the long run.

Many see the PK players as being somewhat interchangeable. Give only 3 minutes a game to Yandle on the PK, and his TOI ends un in the high 26 mins range. Maybe Phoenix's coach want him better rested?

Pk minutes for a defenseman aren't extremely difficult minutes. It would not be even close to the same as giving a guy 4 more ES minutes in a game.

On a per-minute basis, there is way more scoring on special teams. Those are critical minutes. A coach's decision on whether a player gets those minutes, is telling.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

Interesting. I've obviously seen an inordinate amount of Howard's good games it would seem. [And right now, Bruins fans are screaming that I've seen an inordinate amount of Tim Thomas' bad ones, to harken back to recent discussion!] I recall watching a few Wings games in a pretty short period of time where Howard ranged from good to outstanding. By the sounds if it, that hot streak was an abberation.

He was very good his rookie year - easily a top 10 goalie in the league, perhaps top 5.
Playoffs - not so much.
Started this year off looking great but the proverbial sophomore slump really kicked in and though he has thrown in a few good to great games since then, he has consistently been seeing 3-4 pucks past him per game.

Hoping this year has been the aberration, and not last year.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

So only Lidstrom's teammates make mistakes?

Right, how unfortunate he has to play with those stiffs on the Red Wings.

It's really been a weird year as far as minuses go for Lidstrom - he has been by far Detroit's best defenseman defensively, but has flat-out been unlucky that's lot of pucks have gone in while be was on the ice.

Part of it has to do with Howard's sub-par year and part of it has to do with brand new defensive partners.... But most of it has been sheer bad luck. Rafalski this year is a +15 for the Wings, and many spoiled Wings fans are dying to see him traded.

I forgot the link, but there is the guy tracking actual 'errors' on plays for Wings games and assessing plusses and minuses based on who was actually at fault and last time I checked Lidstrom was leading the team in his +/-. It just reconfirms what every Wings fan will tell you.

 

[MS]

Yes, I think 2011 is the worst group of Norris candidates in a long time, probably since the early 80s.

It seems like all the media discussion this year is centred around the guys who have scored a bunch of points. Guys like Yandle, Enstrom, Byfuglien, Letang, and Lidstrom have scored 20+ power play points., mostly because they've played a lot of minutes on the power play. Yeah, there's a reason they get those minutes and they've played well on the power play, but only Lidstrom's team has an above-average power play from that group. Are they making that much of a difference on the power play that power play points should decide who is a Norris contender?

IMO Chara and Staal have been as good as anyone this year, but they don't play 4 minutes a game on the power play, so they don't have a chance. Meanwhile Dustin Byfuglien's coach won't let him on the ice while they're shorthanded, but apparently that doesn't matter.

Randy Carlyle's Norris season might be a good comparable. He won the Norris in a season where his team had the second most power play opportunities in the league, and he scored 46 power play points on an average power play. In his other seasons, he was a solid #1 defenceman, but nothing like a Norris candidate. But in a year where he got a lot of power play time and touches, he won the Norris.

Denis Potvin was absolutely jobbed in 1981 by Norris voters who were sick of voting for him and Robinson and decided instead to vote for the shiny new player playing for a team that had never had a guy win a major award. Potvin should have won the Norris that year in a runaway.

Anyhow, as for this year, I agree completely. Huge over-focus on the guys who are top-5 in defensive scoring.

Chara, in my books, is the best defender in the NHL right now, and his having one of his best seasons. He isn't going to score 50 points, but he plays a ton of minutes, is decent offensively, and has been dominant defensively on one of the best defensive teams in the league.

Before he was hurt, I would have had Ryan Whitney in my top-3. What he was doing in Edmonton this year was absolutely miraculous - leading the team in scoring while somehow going +13 playing the most difficult minutes for the most ghastly defensive team in the NHL. Such a shame he was hurt, because he was really breaking out into a true elite player - was the best player on that team by a country mile every time I saw them play. Not surprisingly, Edmonton completely fell apart once he was out of the lineup.

Alex Edler should have been heading toward a top-5 Norris finish before getting hurt as well.

 

[kg14]

Everyone is all over Lidstroms nuts. One of the best ever.........but he is -1.

Someone tell me the last time a Norris Trophy winner had a negative +/- rating. Lowest in recent history that I have seen is Lidstrom +9 in 2001.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Everyone is all over Lidstroms nuts. One of the best ever.........but he is -1.

Someone tell me the last time a Norris Trophy winner had a negative +/- rating. Lowest in recent history that I have seen is Lidstrom +9 in 2001.

Rob Blake, -3, 1997-98.

 

[Derick*]

Yandle and Byfuglien are defensive liabilities. Apparently people only notice that if your name is Mike Green.

I like Enstrom, Letang, and Lidstrom as finalists.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Yandle and Byfuglien are defensive liabilities. Apparently people only notice that if your name is Mike Green.

I like Enstrom, Letang, and Lidstrom as finalists.

How about Visnovsky, Weber or Ehrhoff?

 

[Blizzard]

Yandle and Byfuglien are defensive liabilities. Apparently people only notice that if your name is Mike Green.

I like Enstrom, Letang, and Lidstrom as finalists.

Letang no longer belongs in the conversation. If he kept up his first half pace, possibly, but he has totally fallen off the map since the beginning of the new year.

Oct. - Dec. : 6 goals, 26 assists, +18

Since Jan. 1: 2 goals, 12 assists, -9

Visnovsky, Lidstrom, Enstrom, Yandle all have better offensive numbers and defensively he is not on the same planet as Lidstrom or Chara. He's gotten the chance to play big minutes and it's starting to seem like he isn't capable of it without wearing down.

I'm sure the team being decimated by injuries doesn't help his totals since January but voters will not compensate for that either.

Right now my finalists would be Lidstrom, Chara, and Visnovsky in no particular order with Weber hanging on the fence.

 

[canucks4ever]

'97 was a year like this. Not weak, but the difference between 1st and 8th or so was very minimal, no one ran away with it.

I was actually shocked lidstrom wasn't the runner up to leetch in 1997. He outscored stevens and konstantinov by huge margins, ozolinsh was just a puck moving defenseman, he sucked in his own zone.

 

[RorschachWJK]

How about Visnovsky, Weber or Ehrhoff?

These guys would be my candidates, plus Chara battling with Ehrhoff for the remaining slot. Lidström as the fifth guy.

 

[Blades of Glory]

'97 was a year like this. Not weak, but the difference between 1st and 8th or so was very minimal, no one ran away with it.

The difference was that in 97, there was a group of elite, proven Norris-level, future HOF defensemen that were still in their prime and had a monopoly on the Norris. Lidstrom was easily the second-best defenseman in the league that year, but probably lost votes because Stevens was more proven and Konstantinov's widely-seen physical ability made him the sexier pick. That was the year that Lidstrom truly elevated himself into the public spotlight as one of the very best defensemen in the league, and began to consistently challenge for the award that had been at the house of Ray Bourque, Chris Chelios, Brian Leetch, or Paul Coffey every year over the previous decade. Still, in 98, Lidstrom likely finished runner-up solely due to the fact he played on a big-name defense core (even without Konstaninov, it was very talented) while Blake carried a Kings team with only two 60 point scorers and a defense that had Gary Galley as a #2.