2018 IIHF WHC Awards

Future GOAT

Registered User
Apr 4, 2017
3,546
2,498
who cares, This doesnt make Rakell> McDavid nor does it make Larsson> Ekblad.
Winning team deserves its players on the all-star list.
Aho should be replaced by a Swiss player in that case. They did get Silver after all.

The general sentiment by the Swedish fans in this thread is that McDavid doesn't deserve to be on the AS team because Canada didn't do good enough. Aho's team did even worse. If team achievement is the trump card here Aho should have not made it on the AS team and a Swiss player should be in his place.
 
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Snauen

Registered User
Dec 27, 2017
1,349
526
its a team game ... ****ty statements like the bolded are the cause of all the ****storms on these boards.
McDavid = epic fail because he didnt wasnt the MVP this tourney? Canadian goaltending was the only epic fail this tournament.
I hear you , "-Thau shall never be critical of McDavid ".. " or the wrath of hf-boards will doom u " .. Relax, Canada did fail in this tournament, its no secret, they did not medal, its a more than enough reason to leave McDavid out the All Star team.
 

Future GOAT

Registered User
Apr 4, 2017
3,546
2,498
I hear you , "-Thau shall never be critical of McDavid ".. " or the wrath of hf-boards will doom u " .. Relax, Canada did fail in this tournament, its no secret, they did not medal, its a more than enough reason to leave McDavid out the All Star team.
That is misrepresenting what people are saying in here. It's what is known in English as a strawman. We're not saying you shall never be critical of him we are saying there are no valid arguments for why he isn't on the AS team when you take everything into account. Every argument made in this thread for why he shouldn't be on the AS team is contradicted by the IIHF's own selections and by the logic and previous arguments of the people in this thread making up the excuses for why he isn't on the AS team.

If you want to argue team achievement trumps points, then Aho shouldn't be there as his team accomplished less than Canada and since McDavid was a top 3 forward and only 1 point behind Aho, but his team accomplished more, he should be in Aho's place. If you want to argue medal placing has priority then a Swiss player should be in Aho's/McDavid's place. If you want to argue McDavid choked, well, apparently the IIHF likes chokers since it has 2 Kane and Aho in it's selection so that's not what's keeping McDavid off the list.
 

Matte99

Registered User
May 23, 2010
1,298
177
Stockholm
To me there is no doubt that McDAvid is the best player in the world but the limited time i watched him play this WHC he looked bad, worse than Rakell. That doesnt mean that it was the whole story since i didnt watch much of Canadas games but yeah, what a disapointment he was. Also, points are rather scewed with Korea in Canadas group.
 

Based Anime Fan

Himedanshi Bandit
Mar 11, 2012
7,477
6,159
Tokai
From reading this thread, McDavid himself may not be 'entitled' to awards, but good lord, his fans are definitely entitled.
 
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Future GOAT

Registered User
Apr 4, 2017
3,546
2,498
To me there is no doubt that McDAvid is the best player in the world but the limited time i watched him play this WHC he looked bad, worse than Rakell. That doesnt mean that it was the whole story since i didnt watch much of Canadas games but yeah, what a disapointment he was. Also, points are rather scewed with Korea in Canadas group.
Even if you remove McDavid's 3 points from that game, he still comes out ahead of Rakell.

Kane and Aho benefited more from Korea.
 

Future GOAT

Registered User
Apr 4, 2017
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If he only had 3 points vs Korea he really cant deserve a spot ahead of Rakell. ;)
McDavid > Rakell, it is what it is. Because of that, he should be in Rakell's place, but I guess like with several posters in this thread there is Anti-Canadian bias.
 

Matte99

Registered User
May 23, 2010
1,298
177
Stockholm
McDavid > Rakell, it is what it is. Because of that, he should be in Rakell's place, but I guess like with several posters in this thread there is Anti-Canadian bias.
I was mostly joking. As I posted, when i looked, McDavid didnt look anything like his usual self. Normally he would be much better than Rakell.
 

Draiskull

Registered User
Oct 26, 2005
23,320
2,160
I hear you , "-Thau shall never be critical of McDavid ".. " or the wrath of hf-boards will doom u " .. Relax, Canada did fail in this tournament, its no secret, they did not medal, its a more than enough reason to leave McDavid out the All Star team.
Did McDavid not lead his team in scoring?
You singled him out and called him an epic failure. Call Parayko, Barzal, RNH, Dubois and Horvat failures too and you wont get jumped on. I have no issues with him not being on this supposed AllStar team.
 

Pieck

Registered User
Dec 13, 2017
364
295
BC
I find it odd that there where no Swiss on the All Star team. There should be a couple of Swiss players over Aho and Kane. And why McJesus? , he couldnt even get Canada to a medal, epic fail
Although a lot of the Swiss forwards played well, none of them dominated like Kane and Aho did.

You could argue that Mirco Mueller deserved a spot, but even then I think the Swedish defenders were just too good. Josi might've gotten a spot if he played the whole tournament.

1.Enzo Corvi (C)1045962|
2.Nino Niederreiter (RW/LW)10459106|
3.Sven Andrighetto (RW/LW)927927-1|
4.Gregory Hofmann (C/LW)1043720|
5.Ramón Untersander (D)103470-3|
6.Timo Meier (RW/LW)725721|
7.Joël Vermin (W/C)1033600|
8.Raphael Díaz (D)1015684|
9.Mirco Müller (D)1015689|
10.Gaëtan Haas (C)1032502|
11.Kevin Fiala (LW/RW)514562|
12.Tristan Scherwey (LW/RW)1022420|
13.Simon Moser (C/W)1022443|
14.Dean Kukan (D)1012300|
15.Roman Josi (D)503342|
16.Michael Fora (D)100114-1|
17.Joël Genazzi (D/F)50000-1|
18.Damien Riat (W/C)600001|
19.Chris Baltisberger (RW)900040|
20.Lukas Frick (D)100000-1|
21.Reto Schäppi (C/LW)100004-1|
22.Noah Rod (W/C)100004-2|
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
 

Garl

Registered User
Oct 7, 2006
8,019
1,013
Lol, some folks are talking about mental gymnastics here, however its actually the other way round.
I mean, yeah, you can make a case for McDavid here, but IMO, counterargument to this is more convincing.
If it is about Aho vs McDavid, then the counterargument is that Aho scored 18 pts in 8 games with a significantly higher ppg ratio than McDavid.
The point that Canada ended up higher and that should somehow tip the scale for McDavid is rather weak.
You can't approach tournaments with this strictly numerical formal logic where a team that ended up 4th has won more than number 5. In whc you can win gold, silver or bronze, but there's no wooden medal for 4th place, so both McDavid and Aho won nothing. Add to this the fact that Finland won their group while Canada hasn't beaten any top team except for Russia in OT and this point is totally irrelevant.

Now Rakell vs McDavid. Main counter argument is that Sweden won all games, so they were dominant team. And usually you would expect players from such team represented both in all star defense and offense. Taking out Rakell would be punishing him for how good and deep his team was.
 

Future GOAT

Registered User
Apr 4, 2017
3,546
2,498
Now Rakell vs McDavid. Main counter argument is that Sweden won all games, so they were dominant team. And usually you would expect players from such team represented both in all star defense and offense. Taking out Rakell would be punishing him for how good and deep his team was.
No it would be punishing him for not performing as well as forwards who out performed him.
 

FinPanda

Team Finland 2022 WHC champions
Mar 13, 2014
7,924
5,055
Vaasa, Finland
I don't have any complains about the all star -team. Usually forwards gets picked based on their point production, so I probably can see why someone is complaining why Rakell was picked over McDavid. But it's a small thing when Sweden won the gold. Canada got nothing. Aho and Kane deserved it based on their points.
 

Appleyard

Registered User
Mar 5, 2010
31,646
40,710
Copenhagen
twitter.com
As someone who voted I will say that the general media consensus seemed to be that in terms of forwards only one centre was picked.

I guess that Aho and McDavid were very close. I personally went back and forth for around an hour with an excel spreadsheet open that evaluated quite a few things... including points against "top" nations.

I think in voters minds Rakell and McDavid were not even in competition for a spot. Most people seemed to choose two wingers and one centre from what I saw.

For further context, by Sunday (when the voting forms were handed out) I would estimate that more than 50% of the press box were Swedish. Which likely had an impact.

I personally thought Elvis Merzļikins should have been the goalie over Nilsson and voted as such... both had great tournaments, but Merzļikins did not have that Swedish D in-front of him.


Hope that this helps answer some questions people have.
 

DDRhockey

Hockeyfan since 1986
Oct 11, 2017
3,385
1,630
McDavid > Rakell, it is what it is. Because of that, he should be in Rakell's place, but I guess like with several posters in this thread there is Anti-Canadian bias.
Nice that you left out that mcdavid was responsible for 2 swiss goals in the semis. That alone Rakell > mcdavid
 

Future GOAT

Registered User
Apr 4, 2017
3,546
2,498
Nice that you left out that mcdavid was responsible for 2 swiss goals in the semis. That alone Rakell > mcdavid
I didn't leave anything out. It's not relevant. If it was Kane wouldn't be on the AS team. Nice try but this is just more excuse making from bias Swedes trying to pretend McDavid didn't belong on the AS team when clearly he did. Every weak and desperate excuse you guys come up with can be used against some of the other selections who made it on the AS team. I honestly don't even know why you guys bother with all the mental gymnastics trying to rationalize this to yourselves, the more you guys do the more your bias shows.

As someone who voted I will say that the general media consensus seemed to be that in terms of forwards only one centre was picked.

I guess that Aho and McDavid were very close. I personally went back and forth for around an hour with an excel spreadsheet open that evaluated quite a few things... including points against "top" nations.

I think in voters minds Rakell and McDavid were not even in competition for a spot. Most people seemed to choose two wingers and one centre from what I saw.
For further context, by Sunday (when the voting forms were handed out) I would estimate that more than 50% of the press box were Swedish. Which likely had an impact.

I personally thought Elvis Merzļikins should have been the goalie over Nilsson and voted as such... both had great tournaments, but Merzļikins did not have that Swedish D in-front of him.


Hope that this helps answer some questions people have.
If this is in fact the case, then it makes sense, and there was definitely some anti-Canadian pro-Swedish bias involved just as I thought.
 
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Appleyard

Registered User
Mar 5, 2010
31,646
40,710
Copenhagen
twitter.com
I didn't leave anything out. It's not relevant. If it was Kane wouldn't be on the AS team. Nice try but this is just more excuse making from bias Swedes trying to pretend McDavid didn't belong on the AS team when clearly he did. Every weak and desperate excuse you guys come up with can be used against some of the other selections who made it on the AS team. I honestly don't even know why you guys bother with all the mental gymnastics trying to rationalize this to yourselves, the more you guys do the more your bias shows.


If this is in fact the case, then it makes sense, and there was definitely some anti-Canadian pro-Swedish bias involved just as I thought.

I think it might have had more of an impact on D and G tbh. I thought personally Mirco Muller (I don't rate him as a player... but he was excellent all tournament) had a shout for the 2nd Dman after OEL. And Nilsson was very good... but for me either 2nd or 3rd best G in tourney.

I think Rakell was probably seen by consensus as the 2nd best winger in the tournament.

Aho and McDavid must have been super close, the people I spoke to it seemed 50:50... and quite a few of the Swedish press voted McDavid I know, and I did not really get a hint of any bias against Canada for example... there is probably more anti-Finnish in some Swedish quarters! :laugh:
 

CanadaIsIrrelevant

Registered User
Mar 20, 2011
1,604
294
Sweden
I'm a bit puzzled as to why Genoni wasn't considered for the All-Star team or the Directorate award.

It doesn't work that way. You can't just award a player for being an underdog and really good.
It's not kids hockey where everyone gets a medal for participating.

Anders Nilsson had the best overall stats in 7 games played.
Second comes Frederik Andersen.

Nilsson - 7 GP- 3 shutouts - 1,09 GAA, 95,40 SV% - 8 GA - 166 SV

Same goes for awarding Rakell over McDavid. Other two players outscored him. One of them in fewer games.
Rakell WAS the best player on Swedish team. Sweden made it to the finals and took Gold Medal.
McDavid odd one out, doesn't really matter how dominant he was. He didn't get through and won the bronze medal. If he did, he probably would be All-Star instead of Rakell.
 

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