2021-2022 Regular Season Discussion Thread

[Satan]

 

[Satan]

You'll see the same names in the race every time... Makar, Fox, Hedman, Josi, Ekblad. With 0 mention of Heiskanen- even though he clearly deserves to be in consideration.

 

[Captain Awesome]

The James Norris Memorial Trophy, or simply the Norris Trophy, is awarded annually to the National Hockey League's top "defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position".

Sure, and you can read the description for the Hart trophy and the Selke trophy too and get back to me on how points have affected those in the past.

A defenseman playing on one of the worst 5v5 offence teams in the league, not playing on the 1st powerplay, and not putting up a ton of points? Shocking.

Not to mention he matches up against the top line of the opposing team.

Those are huge contributing factors, but he's not playing on the 1st powerplay because he doesn't deserve to.

I don't know why it's weird to think he hasn't been a dynamo offensively, even on JFresh's player card his biggest impact areas are EV Defense and quality of competition. The EV Offense percentile at 86% is really good, it just isn't elite. The actual goal and primary assist production are literally mid-pack right there on the card.

 

[Satan]

Sure, and you can read the description for the Hart trophy and the Selke trophy too and get back to me on how points have affected those in the past.

the voters can be wrong

 

[Captain Awesome]

People get off on points. It's the reason Shesterkin is mostly getting mentioned in the Hart race as an afterthought despite the fact NY is actually a fairly porous defensive team that gives up a ton of dangerous chances, but they have a guy playing out of his mind putting up Vezina worth stats despite playing some of the hardest minutes as a goaltender.

-snip-

For all the reasons you listed, there's reason to be optimistic Heiskanen takes the next steps as Dallas moves on from Klingberg and hopefully a system that devalues even-strength scoring. It'll be fine. If he has a Zubov like career and never gets league recognition ... we'd be just as fortunate.

I rarely think goalies deserve a hart, but Shesterkin taking that mediocre team to the playoffs is definitely hart worthy. Even more impressive that his dumbass GM gave away a player like Buchnevich for nearly nothing on top of it.

FWIW I'd be really thrilled if Heiskanen sniffs a zubov like career. I was so shocked when they inducted him into the hall of fame, but he completely deserves it. Two cups, one where he lead his team in scoring during the regular season, and season after season of consistently elite 2-way play. I don't see Heiskanen as being as slick offensively as Zubov, but they're just very different players in general. Genuinely hope a new coach gets more out of him in the offensive zone in the future. I think it was Johno that mentioned he has fantastic scoring chance creation this season, but I'm not sure that we've seen it fully translate to results yet.

 

[Captain Awesome]

the voters can be wrong

They definitely can be, and are, it's just a bad faith argument to bring up the Norris description like we don't all know exactly how those are awarded.

In reality, I think Patrice Bergeron probably should have just wont the selke for the last decade or something, they just got tired of voting for the same guy, but it's always the same guy.

 

[Satan]

They definitely can be, and are, it's just a bad faith argument to bring up the Norris description like we don't all know exactly how those are awarded.

In reality, I think Patrice Bergeron probably should have just wont the selke for the last decade or something, they just got tired of voting for the same guy, but it's always the same guy.

I don't see how it's a bad faith argument at all- it's always been a debate with how to weigh points vs. defensive contributions.... and we've never been better equipped than we are now to determine the "best" defenseman in the NHL.

 

[Captain Awesome]

I don't see how it's a bad faith argument at all- it's always been a debate with how to weigh points vs. defensive contributions.... and we've never been better equipped than we are now to determine the "best" defenseman in the NHL.

It's bad faith because Norris voting has always been a particularly special brand of bullshit, and you've been around long enough to know this. The description of every subjective award has not been how trophies have been awarded since I've been a child, analytics isn't going to change that anytime soon.

We could call it semantics and just say Heiskanen should be in the discussion for best defenseman, and I think that's almost an entirely different discussion.

 

[hairylikebear]

I'm just not seeing the connection between 3 year weighted averaged WAR% and the single season Norris race. I agree that Heiskanen is in the same tier of talent as the top 5 this year, but he just hasn't had that kind of year so far.

It's bad faith because Norris voting has always been a particularly special brand of bullshit

I don't agree with this. This is a common point of view among those that make the assumption that offensive and defensive contributions are inherently equal, which is not true at the highest level. Defensive contribution is capped by the level of offense you are shutting down. You can't concede fewer than zero goals. Offensive contribution is uncapped.

 

[Captain Awesome]

I'm just not seeing the connection between 3 year weighted averaged WAR% and the single season Norris race. I agree that Heiskanen is in the same tier of talent as the top 5 this year, but he just hasn't had that kind of year so far.



I don't agree with this. This is a common point of view among those that make the assumption that offensive and defensive contributions are inherently equal, which is not true at the highest level. Defensive contribution is capped by the level of offense you are shutting down. You can't concede fewer than zero goals. Offensive contribution is uncapped.

That's an interesting point, because I was actually thinking of Erik Karlsson when I said it. He made the mistake of scoring too much offense, and by logic of voters, it must mean he was too awful defensively to be worth a Norris. Then there's the Doughty lifetime achievement award Norris, where people were mad because they thought he deserved a Norris, so they kinda gave him one in a year where he just didn't deserve it, specifically the year where Karlsson put up 82 points in 82 games, which was an incredible feat. According to wikipedia, he was the first defenseman to be top 5 in scoring since Coffey in 1986, and the first to lead the NHL in assists as a d-man since Bobby Orr in 1975.

True that JFresh uses 3-year war, but then again, I wasn't the one who posted it as an argument. I don't have a subscription to his stuff to view isolated one year impacts.

 

[hairylikebear]

The WAR thing wasn't in response to you, but yeah I recognize that some years the top defensemen are close enough to one another that differences of opinion between fans and voters is practically a certainty.

It seems to me you're assuming the voters are using bad logic simply because their conclusion differs from yours, or from the opinion of some group of people that you agree with. Doughty had a great season that year, only behind Karlsson by one tenth of a point share. In any case, it seems like that logic supports the idea that there's a bias favoring defense when it comes to Norris voting, which should only benefit Heiskanen. In most cases though, the top defenseman by point shares is frequently also the Norris winner.

There may also be a bias in the point share statistic in favor of offensive production.

 

[Captain Awesome]

The WAR thing wasn't in response to you, but yeah I recognize that some years the top defensemen are close enough to one another that differences of opinion between fans and voters is practically a certainty.

It seems to me you're assuming the voters are using bad logic simply because their conclusion differs from yours, or from the opinion of some group of people that you agree with. Doughty had a great season that year, only behind Karlsson by one tenth of a point share. In any case, it seems like that logic supports the idea that there's a bias favoring defense when it comes to Norris voting, which should only benefit Heiskanen. In most cases though, the top defenseman by point shares is frequently also the Norris winner.

There may also be a bias in the point share statistic in favor of offensive production.

My point is that there's this perceived 'right' level of offense. PPG d-man? Too much. Heiskanen if he only gets around 45-ish? Possibly too little. I was kind of hopping onto your point about the upside of offense being unlimited, Karlsson put up 82 points to Doughty's 51 points in the same year. You'd have to play some insane defense to bridge that gap. Doughty is great, but he isn't doing things that haven't been done since Paul Coffey and Bobby Orr, Karlsson was putting up the kind of production that hadn't been accomplished in 30-40 years, that's special.

I think the reality is that it's really hard to watch 30+ teams and have a good grasp on each player. There's a much smaller likelihood that some journalist went back and watched chunks of each player's season they have to vote on for each award. I don't really trust a beat writer to have much better judgement about these things than I do. The beat writer for whatever team is watching one team all year long, just like I am, because we don't have time to watch hundreds of NHL games and take meticulous notes on each star player to figure out where they're at for this year. They might do something silly like look at the gap in Doughty and Karlsson's +/- to confirm their bias and call it a day.

To be honest with you, I don't really have super strong feelings about these awards. As a Stars fan they don't really come up much and I don't feel passionate about them in general. I do think the voters are probably not getting it right, or coming at it from a nuanced point of view. Hockey is still full of old dinosaurs, that includes a lot of the people who vote on these things. That being said, at the very elite levels I don't think they'd be getting it wildly wrong, and sometimes not at all. I think the Norris and Selke are probably more nuanced than most of the people who watch hockey have time to suss out. Analytics helps a lot, certainly, but it isn't perfect enough to point to a model and make a definitive decision. The other side of the coin isn't either, I wouldn't trust someone who is 100% eye test. If I had to guess, most of the voters don't do enough of either, especially because they have to vote on several awards.

 

[hairylikebear]

All it takes is some combination of Karlsson being below average defensively (which he was) and Doughty being close to the best (which again, by the metrics I value, he was). It's just not the best illustration of your point that the Norris can be awarded incorrectly based on some historically known biases of the voters.

I would understand where you're coming from if there was some objective way to compare past results against the actual correct choice, but we don't have that, and in its absence you seem to be substituting your own judgement.

 

[M88K]

All it takes is some combination of Karlsson being below average defensively (which he was) and Doughty being close to the best (which again, by the metrics I value, he was). It's just not the best illustration of your point that the Norris can be awarded incorrectly based on some historically known biases of the voters.

I would understand where you're coming from if there was some objective way to compare past results against the actual correct choice, but we don't have that, and in its absence you seem to be substituting your own judgement.

There's tons of incidents of awards, including the Norris, being handed out undeserved. Look at Lidstroms last Norris, look at Crosby having 2 Smythe trophies.
Hell look at hedman being a finalist last year.
Look at Ekblads calder.
That's a bit scatter shot, but you get the point.
There's times every year where a player inexplicable wins because of their reputation, while there actual impact was not worthy.
Hedman last year was a net negative player when on the ice for Tampa, yet somehow was a top3 vote getter.

 

[Rory]

You'll see the same names in the race every time... Makar, Fox, Hedman, Josi, Ekblad. With 0 mention of Heiskanen- even though he clearly deserves to be in consideration.

I don’t think Miro is in that tier yet. His offensive game is clearly not there. Now you can blame the system and rightfully so. I view heiskanen as a young Josi. I think he can get there offensively and yet be a little better defensively than Josi. But that is who I would compare him too. So yes, soon (once Bowness is gone) he will get in the conversation for Norris.

 

[hairylikebear]

There's tons of incidents of awards, including the Norris, being handed out undeserved. Look at Lidstroms last Norris, look at Crosby having 2 Smythe trophies.
Hell look at hedman being a finalist last year.
Look at Ekblads calder.
That's a bit scatter shot, but you get the point.
There's times every year where a player inexplicable wins because of their reputation, while there actual impact was not worthy.
Hedman last year was a net negative player when on the ice for Tampa, yet somehow was a top3 vote getter.

I'm not really trying to have a subjective conversation about who deserves what award. I just don't see a consistent trend with controversial award winners. The voters don't seem to favor any metric in particular.

 

[Troy McClure]

The James Norris Memorial Trophy, or simply the Norris Trophy, is awarded annually to the National Hockey League's top "defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position".

Can a guy really claim to be the greatest all around if he's tied for 28th in scoring amongst d-men? It's not that a guy has to lead the lead in points among d-men, but a guy can't finish behind Cam Fowler and be mad others got votes ahead of him.

 

[Satan]

Can a guy really claim to be the greatest all around if he's tied for 28th in scoring amongst d-men? It's not that a guy has to lead the lead in points among d-men, but a guy can't finish behind Cam Fowler and be mad others got votes ahead of him.

Can a guy really claim to be the greatest all around defensemen if there are 60+ better players at defense than him?

 

[JesusNPucks]

I think it’s a fair argument from “both sides,” as it were. That is, the perception of who is deserving of the Norris changes with the trends of the game. Back in the “clutch-and-grab” era, Zubov would not win, even if nominated. (Though, perhaps I contradict myself by pointing out that Leetch, Coffee, and Borque won many in those years.)

Nowadays, the best and most respected defensemen are expected to contribute offensively, and the more the better. I think Miro fits more in the mold of a Niedermeyer or Lidstrom type, and less of a Karlsson or Fox or Makar, and that’s still pretty darn good. He’s a franchise defenseman of a different ilk, and we will be happy to have him for years, even if he is never crowned the prom king.

Not saying that any of you weren’t saying that. Just tossing in my two cents.

 

[Captain Awesome]

All it takes is some combination of Karlsson being below average defensively (which he was) and Doughty being close to the best (which again, by the metrics I value, he was). It's just not the best illustration of your point that the Norris can be awarded incorrectly based on some historically known biases of the voters.

I would understand where you're coming from if there was some objective way to compare past results against the actual correct choice, but we don't have that, and in its absence you seem to be substituting your own judgement.

I think it's strange that anyone would claim that award voting has been objectively good. I don't think they're ever incredibly far off, but you're literally the first person I've ever seen that has been satisfied with how these things are awarded. M88k's list is pretty good, I didn't even bring up the Smythe, which has been highly, highly suspect over the last decade. The Crosby one is definitely at the top of that. If you're a Stars fan and you watched Ekblad win the calder over Klingberg, and Klingberg not even being in the top 3 of nominations, I'm not sure what to tell you. Sometimes they just get it wrong. It's easy to look at the Canadian 1st overall defenseman put up a good season and just call it a day. No one cares about the Swedish 5th rounder leading his team to the playoffs. Voters use shortcuts, a lot of the time it's points, +/-, reputation, nationality, etc. None of the things I said were just 'my judgement', they were widely mentioned at the time of awards. I have no dog in the fight of Doughty vs Karlsson, I don't particularly care about either player.

 

[Troy McClure]

Can a guy really claim to be the greatest all around defensemen if there are 60+ better players at defense than him?

Yes, because producing offense is the single most helpful contribution a skater can make to winning.

 

[Satan]

Yes, because producing offense is the single most helpful contribution a skater can make to winning.

I disagree- and again please refer to the description of the Norris trophy. I'm picking the guy that is the better all-around defenseman:

I'm not taking the guy with a sizeable gap between offense and defense.

Until Makar significantly outproduces the 2nd highest scoring defenseman, he is not my Norris winner.

 

[Troy McClure]

I disagree- and again please refer to the description of the Norris trophy. I'm picking the guy that is the better all-around defenseman:
View attachment 513811

I'm not taking the guy with a sizeable gap between offense and defense.
View attachment 513812


Until Makar significantly outproduces the 2nd highest scoring defenseman, he is not my Norris winner.

But there is a very sizeable gap in offense when you look at results.

 

[BG44]

 

[Satan]

But there is a very sizeable gap in offense when you look at results.

Colorado have scored 62 more goals than Dallas and Makar doubles Heiskanen in PP TOI