Ok, slavery was a bit much, I agree, but the point still stands (no pun intended)! I wasn’t arguing that there shouldn’t be a tie breaker (though maybe they should have shared the award as Panther suggests). I was arguing the tie breaker shouldn’t be based on goals, which have the exact same (1 to 1) value as assists. If you use goals as a tiebreaker, you are implying that goals have more value than assists...but the problem with that is, well, they don’t. (Otherwise a goal would be worth 1.5 points or 2 points...or an assist would be worth half a point...or what have you...but it isn’t.) Your comparison with wins being used for tiebreakers in overall team standings is not the same thing, as wins are worth 2 points and ties are only worth 1 point. Again, goals and assists are worth one point each.
This is a slippery slope, because the line has to be drawn somewhere. How many phantom assists did each player receive? Are certain scorekeepers for particular games more stingy on providing assists than others?
I guess the three main arguments for using goals as the tiebreak would be the following:
1) While goals and assists are worth the same, each scoring play has the potential to provide twice as many assists as goals. Theoretically, a player can rack a boatload of secondary assists, which didn't contribute much to the goal. I'm not saying this happened with Gretzky, but I'm saying in general.
2) Goals are much less subjective. They are the black and white figure, where you automatically register a goal when the puck crosses the line. Sure, there are the rare occurrences of perhaps an early whistle which waives off an actual goal, but relative to assists, they are a much less subjective stat.
3). This is probably the biggest argument for goals. They are sexy. Which individual record is considered the most sacred, and caused the greatest following when it was on the verge of being broken?
At the end of the day, it's a business, and you have to please your stakeholders, one of which is the fans. They love their goals, and this tiebreak aligns with that reality.