Fair to say the Art Ross, Rocket Richard, and Ted Lindsay the three most prestigious awards?

[keglu]

Don't understand this new found love affair for the Lindsay. It was scoffed at on these boards a few years ago. The rocket, Smythe, Art Ross, and Hart were the big four.

When Ovechkin and Stamkos were winning, the rocket had high prestige.

*looks at this years winner* Ah, I know why it is a lesser trophy now.

Not everything is about Lefs. Ovechkin druing his like 5 last Rockets was probably not considered TOP 5 player.
That is really not comparable to winning 5 Art Rosses or 5 Harts so they cannot be in the same category.

 

[Spoilers]

The Lindsay is significant because the players vote on it. They know better than the writers do. That’s why it usually matches the Hart trophy. There is way less politics with the players though.

 

[34]

Stanley Cup is #1.

 

[North Cole]

Don't understand this new found love affair for the Lindsay. It was scoffed at on these boards a few years ago. The rocket, Smythe, Art Ross, and Hart were the big four.

When Ovechkin and Stamkos were winning, the rocket had high prestige.

*looks at this years winner* Ah, I know why it is a lesser trophy now.

Honestly, I think most people believe the Rocket is prestigious and I wouldn't say it's less prestigious with Matthews having won it. The problem is that the thread is kind of a loaded question, because many people are going to pick Hart/Ross/Lindsay, so having the rocket ahead of the Hart will make people respond negatively to it this thread. Doesn't mean they think the Rocket is junk, just that it's less prestigious than those three - which is the group I'm in. OV's 9 rockets are one of the reasons I hold his legacy on par or better than Crosby. Crosby has a better PPG, but I don't really view him as having that much better a legacy than OV.

The Lindsay probably started getting more appeal after the idea that the Writers jumped the shark with the Hall Hart started gaining traction, or that the writers are generally incompetent.

 

[ole ole]

It goes like this IMO (forwards major regular season awards):

1. Hart
2. Art Ross
3. Lindsay
4. Rocket
5. Selke
6. Minor awards (Masterton, Messier, Lady Byng etc.)

You kind of forgot the Norris .

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

You kind of forgot the Norris .

If you read closely, you'd see that I mentioned "forwards" in the first sentence.

 

[Dust]

Hart is definitely there. And Smythe too. above rocket. For me - it goes like this:

Tier 1:

1. Hart. Easy #1
2. Lindsay - #2. It sounds like a cool thing to say 'voted on by your peers' - but simply put the Hart is seen as more prestigious, right or wrong
3. Ross. This one slightly below the other 2 - because there are times when the Ross winner doesn't matter much (Benn, St Louis in 2013, Gretzky in 94). The Hart/Lindsay winners are always a big thing
4. Smythe. I have this below the above 3 - and the reason why is you can have some non-star players win. Like a Justin Williams, or Claude Lemieux. More power to them for winning - but it's just not necessarily best in the world players who win this. Clearly players love this - because it means you win a cup usually - I'd still have it behind the top 3.

Tier 2:

1. Norris.
2. Rocket
3. Vezina

The above 3 are close. I have Vezina last simply because of how much turnover there is with goalies lately. It means less. A random goalie in a career year who'll never be a top 10 goalie in the game again might win, and you don't see that with forward awards as much. Rocket/Norris are interchangeable.

4. Selke. Clearly last of the 4.

Tier 3:

The rest. Lady Byng, Messier, etc.

I was in the same thought as you, but I went and looked at the winners in the last 20-30 years, they are all well established goalies, there's not really any flukey one hit wonders in that list. Tim Thomas had the shortest peak, but he was still a really good goalie for 3-4 seasons. The last kind of one off winner you'd have to go back to Jim Carey in 1996.

NHL Vezina Trophy Winners

 

[thadd]

It goes like this IMO (forwards major regular season awards):

1. Hart
2. Art Ross
3. Lindsay
4. Rocket
5. Selke
6. Minor awards (Masterton, Messier, Lady Byng etc.)

So you think that the media's opinion of who should be MVP is more relevant than the players? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

For me

1 - Lindsay - Nothing is more gratifying than everyone else in your profession tell you that you did it best.
2 - Con Smythe - Dominating when it matters most.
3 - Art Ross - Chances are the opposition spent the entire season trying to shut you down, but you still led the entire league in points.
4 - Selke - Congrats, you're the most well-rounded forward in the league.
5 - Rocket - Congrats, you can put the puck in the net. Doesn't suggest you can kill penalties or even put the puck in the net all that often at even strength.
6 - Hart - People who get paid money to talk about people like talking about you. If your agent has half a brain you're making more money from instagram than actually playing hockey.
7 - Lady Byng - The nice guy who played really well, but didn't do enough to win anything important.
8 - Masterton - Everyone thought your career was over, but you showed them that you've at least got a few more seasons left in the tank.
9 - Messier - You're a captain with groupies and they aren't hotties.

How on earth is there a Messier award? Like having a Messier award and not having a Gretzy or Lemieux award? What a joke.
Maybe we can start giving players Gretzky awards for making into the HHOF.
We could give the Lemeiux award to the players that spend the least amount of time in the gym... but I think Mario deserves a bit better than that.

 

[x Tame Impala]

No one really cares about the Lindsay, a few people just really want it to be something more than it is.

Outside of maybe 2018 (sorry Devils fans), when wasn’t the Hart awarded to either the best or 2nd best player in the league in the post-lockout-era?The Hart Trophy is the single most important individual trophy in the league. It’s that way in every sport. Yes, it’s chosen by a bunch of writers, some of them are meatheads, but most of them get paid to watch and cover hockey for a living. They by and large know what they’re talking about. Get over it.

This whole Hart Trophy “insurrection” a select few of you are trying to start is never going to catch on.

1) Stanley Cup
2) Hart
3) Smythe
4/5) Ross/Richard
6) Norris
7) Vezina
8) Selke
9) Calder

 

[TeddyBare]

Most prestigious awards:

1) Fastest skater at the the all-star game
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2) everything else.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I’m hesitant to think the Richard is a secondary trophy. Scoring goals is the best thing about hockey and everyone wants to know who the best in the league is every year. Especially if you can do it consistently, being the league’s best at scoring goals is a big deal.

Winning it is a career-defining deal. Ovechkin is cementing his legacy as best goal scorer ever and the 9 Rockets are proof of it. Leaf fans will be insufferable, but it’s going to be awesome to watch Matthews’ career and see if he can get close. Stamkos winning two was huge, Crosby too. Perry had career-year scoring and they gave him a Hart for it! The Richard is a big deal. A Cheechoo situation happened ONE TIME and people try and use that to lessen the importance of the award. Which is funny because Cheechoo winning the Richard...made an otherwise forgettable player will be remembered in infamy forever

 

[J bo Jeans]

The players don't watch enough games though. Sure, they know how to play, but they rarely know how to appropriately evaluate other players based on advanced statistics.

People on HF give themselves way too much credit lol... I'd rather have the most talented hockey players who've played at an elite level their whole lives in the game tell me I'm the best then a bunch of writers who've never played and don't see the game at ice level.

 

[JasonRoseEh]

1. Cup

The end.

Yawn

 

[agent082]

Do they vote Lindsay this year? They have played only against couple of team.

 

[CanadienShark]

Hart, Ross, Lindsay

 

[SotasicA]

I mean, Hart Trophy is and will always be #1. It is the single most prestigious individual award, followed by the Conn Smythe, but neither is included so I guess out of these...

1. Art Ross
2. Lindsay
3. Rocket

Art Ross is something fans follow closely all season. It's tangible, it's good, it's important. All that. All the great scorers won it.

Lindsay/Pearson is a lesser Hart. It should be higher maybe, considering goalies and d-men also compete for it (unlike the Art Ross), but it just really isn't. Not really. And it certainly didn't help they changed the name. Took out some of the aura. Players doing the voting makes it seem like a popularity contest more than a legitimate objective award.

Rocket is too recent. I mean, it's tangible. But just not a legendary award. It's a great award to win, no doubt, but it just doesn't have any history. It needs to work its way up the prestige levels. And even then, it's only an award for goal scoring. It's a lesser Art Ross, just like the Lindsay is a lesser Hart.

Vezina & Norris are more prestigious than these, in my opinion. Though Norris has kind of taken a hit with it being a de facto scoring award nowadays, instead of best d-man.

And Selke has gone totally down the toilet. It used to be the best defensive forward (ie. Bob Gainey), and guys like Carbonneau used to win it, but now it's a scoring race consolation award with the pretence that it's actually a "two-way award" and how you can't win it if you don't score a shit ton. I call BS. Gainey barely scored 30pts a season. It should be given to the actual best shutdown forward and throw points out the window completely. The award for the 3rd and 4th line PK specialist.

 

[Steve]

IMO Lindsay, Hart, and Conn Smythe - if we exclude Cup obviously.

Art Ross and Rocket are obviously very prestigious but they are awards based solely on a stat line, albeit an impressive one. IMO, they are in that second tier like the Vezina, Norris and Selke that are for a specific output vs overall play (you could argue this about the Norris/Vezina but since it's only for a specific position, I kept it separated)

 

[Scandale du Jour]

Trophies, especially voted-on trophies, are mostly marketing gimmicks and are largely treated as such. Hart, Lindsay, Conn Smythe, Norris, Vezina. All voted-on, all controversial at times, all mostly narrative driven when it is close. Way too much subjectivity. Note that I do not like the Oscars, the Grammys or other entertainment awards either.

Rocket mesures one aspect. Art Ross also mesures one aspect. They show you were the most productive player in goal scoring or point producing, not that you are "the best" (it does corrolate though).

At the end of the day, I do not value trophies that much. I'll value a combinaison of things to make an assessement. Trophies will be part of it, but trophy counting, meh.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

I’m hesitant to think the Richard is a secondary trophy. Scoring goals is the best thing about hockey and everyone wants to know who the best in the league is every year. Especially if you can do it consistently, being the league’s best at scoring goals is a big deal.

Winning it is a career-defining deal. Ovechkin is cementing his legacy as best goal scorer ever and the 9 Rockets are proof of it. Leaf fans will be insufferable, but it’s going to be awesome to watch Matthews’ career and see if he can get close. Stamkos winning two was huge, Crosby too. Perry had career-year scoring and they gave him a Hart for it! The Richard is a big deal. A Cheechoo situation happened ONE TIME and people try and use that to lessen the importance of the award. Which is funny because Cheechoo winning the Richard...made an otherwise forgettable player will be remembered in infamy forever

All his 9 Rockets prove is that Alex Ovechkin is perhaps the best goal scorer of all time. That's awesome, but that it is one aspect. The guy has not scored 90 points a season in a decade and is pacing under a PPG for that decade. That is also part of his legacy.

If you want to talk "legacy", you also have to add playoffs and team results.

Legacy-wise Ovechkin is firmly behind Crosby. When it comes to the conventional definition of "legacy", winning has a LOT of weight (good or bad). Now, does that mean that he is firmly behind him as a player? Not necessarily, there can be arguments both ways and we have been having those on HF for more than 18 years (yes, as far as 2 years before Sid was drafted).

That being said, leading the league in goal scoring is absolutely a very big deal and doing it at a rate nobody else did is a huge legacy enhancer.

 

[The Wahligator]

To me the Smythe is the most prestigious individual award. You showed up when it matters most and were the best player on a championship team. Doesn’t get more valuable than that.

 

[Regal]

I’m hesitant to think the Richard is a secondary trophy. Scoring goals is the best thing about hockey and everyone wants to know who the best in the league is every year. Especially if you can do it consistently, being the league’s best at scoring goals is a big deal.

Winning it is a career-defining deal. Ovechkin is cementing his legacy as best goal scorer ever and the 9 Rockets are proof of it. Leaf fans will be insufferable, but it’s going to be awesome to watch Matthews’ career and see if he can get close. Stamkos winning two was huge, Crosby too. Perry had career-year scoring and they gave him a Hart for it! The Richard is a big deal. A Cheechoo situation happened ONE TIME and people try and use that to lessen the importance of the award. Which is funny because Cheechoo winning the Richard...made an otherwise forgettable player will be remembered in infamy forever

To me, I only consider it secondary because it's easier to win while not being among the very best players for the season, which was the case with Ovechkin for a couple of his wins, Cheechoo, Nash, and Hejduk. And going back to goal leaders before the award, Tkachuk, Bondra, Stoughton, Gare, Simmer, Shutt, Leach, etc. I'll see Washington fans use trophy counting in arguments for Ovechkin over Crosby, but there's some years where he won the Richard, Crosby won nothing, and yet Sid was the better player. That doesn't really happen with the Hart, Lindsay or Ross very often.

 

[noo]

Can't vote and don't really know much about awards but I do have a question..

Why do people generally rate the Art Ross in a higher tier than Rocket? Goals are harder to get and usually more valuable than points (to a certain extent..). I would think those awards are pretty equal accomplishments, no?

 

[psycat]

The Lindsay is significant because the players vote on it. They know better than the writers do. That’s why it usually matches the Hart trophy. There is way less politics with the players though.

Bullshit, writers obviously watch more games than your average player. Players are the product, they are there to be judged not judging.

Ted Lindsay to me is a long the lines of the Mark Messier award.

 

[psycat]

Can't vote and don't really know much about awards but I do have a question..

Why do people generally rate the Art Ross in a higher tier than Rocket? Goals are harder to get and usually more valuable than points (to a certain extent..). I would think those awards are pretty equal accomplishments, no?

Look at the list of Art Ross winners, now compare it to the list of Rocket winners. Should tell you everything you need to know.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

1. Hart
2. Conn Smythe
3. Art Ross