Duncan Keith vs Scott Niedermayer

[HanSolo]

Really close. Went with Scott.

 

[SlapshotTheMovie]

Its close but i feel like Scott is getting a lot of votes because he is a retire player with enough time passed from his last game to start romanticizing him. He was great. keith just did about the same with less talent around him and his conn smythe win was f***ing insane to watch.

 

[Tom Brady]

Keith. from 2010 to 2015 he was arguably the best defenseman in the league. shoud've won both conn smythe over both Kane and Toews. the 2015 cup run he had was one of the greatest of all time.

 

[wetcoast]

Niedermayer has become overrated. In his first decade in the NHL, he had one great season (1998). He only played at his peak level from the 2003 playoffs until 2007 - but since that was pretty late in his career, many people project backwards and assume he had been at that level his entire career.

During his first decade in the NHL, he got less consideration for the Norris trophy than Eric Desjardins and Sandis Ozolinsh, and only slightly more than Teppo Numminen. Not that Norris voting is a perfect measure, but in this case I think it accurately shows that he didn't become an elite performer until very late into his twenties.

He is over rated in certain circles but even though he had only 1 great season in his first decade he was still very very good.

At age 21 he had an excellent SC playoff run with NJ and is arguably a 1B to Stevens 1A that year.

At age 23 he was good enough to play for team Canada in a best on best tournament.

At the age of 29 he leads the NHL playoffs in socring and plays 26:07 in that run.

In the previous 4 years he averages 25 MPG in the playoffs over 56 games and 2 trips to the SC finals.

Part of the problem for Nieds is that he played in Scott Stevens shadow.

I still take Keith in his prime but I think Nieds had a better career even if only slightly.