Hart Trophy Tournament (Post 2000's) Round 1: 2001 Sakic vs 2014 Crosby

[blundluntman]

Hadn't seen this idea done just yet so I figured it'd be fun to match up all the Hart Trophy seasons so far this century (starting with 2000-01) and see who comes up on top.

MATCHUP #1: Joe Sakic (2001) vs Sidney Crosby (2014)

Joe Sakic (2000-01):
82 GP 54 G 64 A 118 Points | 2nd in scoring, 2nd in goals, 2nd in Selke voting

Sidney Crosby (2013-14):
80 GP 36 G 68 A 104 Points | 1st in scoring, 1st in assists, top 20 Selke finish




Round 1 matchups:
Sakic 01 vs Crosby 14
Theodore 02 vs Price 15
Forsberg 03 vs Kane 16
St. Louis 04 vs Kucherov 19
Thornton 06 vs Hall 18
Crosby 07 vs McDavid 17
Ovechkin 08 vs Matthews 22
Ovechkin 09 vs Malkin 12
Sedin 10 vs Draisaitl 20
Perry 11 vs McDavid 21
Ovechkin 13 vs McDavid 23

I've decided to change some of the matchups so the 1st round isn't too top-heavy. There should still be some interesting faceoffs but I wanna make sure the tourney doesn't lose too much steam in Round 2.

Click to read more...

 

[bobholly39]

A lot of similarities between seasons in a way, as both teams are loaded and near top of league, but both Sakic/Crosby stood out as their best players that year. Both Malkin/Forsberg were good but not as good, and both had partial seasons due to injuries.

Crosby was probably a bigger part of Pittsburgh's success than Sakic was to Colorado - but that's more about Colorado being more stacked, than Crosby necessarily having the better year.

This was one of the most dominating wins of Art Ross for Crosby in 2014 when looking at % over #2 - but it really goes to show that competition simply isn't the same every season. Competition was quite weak here, wihch helps him lap the field by a bigger margin.

I'll give Sakic slight edge overall.

OP - those are some pretty insane brackets you have in your tournament. Many of them are going to be extremely close.

 

[DitchMarner]

I'd go with Sakic for better goal scoring + better Selke voting result.

 

[blundluntman]

A lot of similarities between seasons in a way, as both teams are loaded and near top of league, but both Sakic/Crosby stood out as their best players that year. Both Malkin/Forsberg were good but not as good, and both had partial seasons due to injuries.

Crosby was probably a bigger part of Pittsburgh's success than Sakic was to Colorado - but that's more about Colorado being more stacked, than Crosby necessarily having the better year.

This was one of the most dominating wins of Art Ross for Crosby in 2014 when looking at % over #2 - but it really goes to show that competition simply isn't the same every season. Competition was quite weak here, wihch helps him lap the field by a bigger margin.

I'll give Sakic slight edge overall.

OP - those are some pretty insane brackets you have in your tournament. Many of them are going to be extremely close.

My main focus when choosing the matchups was to make it as close as possible so that's good to hear lol. I'm looking forward to seeing how a lot of them play out

 

[bobholly39]

My main focus when choosing the matchups was to make it as close as possible so that's good to hear lol. I'm looking forward to seeing how a lot of them play out

The round 1 matchups are perfect. So many of them are fitting too, with Price vs Theodore, Ovechkin 08 vs McDavid 2021, Crosby 07 vs McDavid 17, etc. Yeah, fantastic round 1 matchups.

You're going to get a ton of complaints from people though about how beyond round 1 many of the favorires got eliminated too early.

 

[DitchMarner]

The round 1 matchups are perfect. So many of them are fitting too, with Price vs Theodore, Ovechkin 08 vs McDavid 2021, Crosby 07 vs McDavid 17, etc. Yeah, fantastic round 1 matchups.

You're going to get a ton of complaints from people though about how beyond round 1 many of the favorires got eliminated too early.

Basically this. Round one will be intriguing, but after that it'll be tough to have competitive polls while also retaining enough of the favorites to have good polls later on.

 

[blundluntman]

The round 1 matchups are perfect. So many of them are fitting too, with Price vs Theodore, Ovechkin 08 vs McDavid 2021, Crosby 07 vs McDavid 17, etc. Yeah, fantastic round 1 matchups.

You're going to get a ton of complaints from people though about how beyond round 1 many of the favorires got eliminated too early.

Yeah I definitely anticipate some complaints but I think if the seeding is done properly and the later round matchups are seeded well, folks will be willing to move on. My main goal is to keep things as close as possible in each round and avoid too many blowouts; I feel like these kinda tournaments are best when each individual round is as enjoyable as possible.

 

[Regal]

Sakic, and while I don’t think it’s a huge margin, I think it’s pretty clear. While Crosby won the Art Ross, he didn’t have a Lemieux-aided Jagr to compete with that year and Sakic’s percentage leads over other placements (3rd, 5th, 10th, etc) are pretty similar. He was also the significantly better primary point producer (93-70) while being a similarly dominant play driver and a better defensive player.

Sakic was also more consistent, whereas Crosby tailed off in the final third or more of the year (apparently around the time he hurt his wrist). Crosby also just didn’t seem as dominant as his totals, presumably playing a little more conservatively due to his injuries, and this carried through into a disappointing playoffs with 1 goal in 13 games. Sakic meanwhile carried his play into the playoffs, being in the convo for the Conn Smythe. It doesn’t seem like this is about the playoffs (it’d be even easier with it), but I think it just highlights the better player beyond just season totals. Beyond just what happened on paper, if I’m picking a player on my team between 2001 Sakic and 2014 Crosby, I’m picking Sakic

 

[wetcoast]

Sakic, and while I don’t think it’s a huge margin, I think it’s pretty clear. While Crosby won the Art Ross, he didn’t have a Lemieux-aided Jagr to compete with that year and Sakic’s percentage leads over other placements (3rd, 5th, 10th, etc) are pretty similar. He was also the significantly better primary point producer (93-70) while being a similarly dominant play driver and a better defensive player.

Sakic was also more consistent, whereas Crosby tailed off in the final third or more of the year (apparently around the time he hurt his wrist). Crosby also just didn’t seem as dominant as his totals, presumably playing a little more conservatively due to his injuries, and this carried through into a disappointing playoffs with 1 goal in 13 games. Sakic meanwhile carried his play into the playoffs, winning the Conn Smythe. It doesn’t seem like this is about the playoffs (it’d be even easier with it), but I think it just highlights the better player beyond just season totals. Beyond just what happened on paper, if I’m picking a player on my team between 2001 Sakic and 2014 Crosby, I’m picking Sakic

I agree with a lot here but will do a slight counter to the consistency part as Foppa played in 73 games and was a very good 200 foot player and Malkin in 60 games and was past his peak pahse and in his injury riddled still good years.

The biggest difference between the 2 teams was on the back end though with the Pens having many lost man games and no one of star quality like Bourque and a limited Rob Blake pickup at the end of the season.

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Much more stability in that Avs lineup

There is also the guys in net Patrick roy and MAF to consider here.

All of this being said it's really a "let's flip a coin" type of poll because it's really hard to consider in any objective way how each Hart stacked up almost 15 seasons apart in single season different environments and different team/league dynamics right?

 

[TheGuiminator]

Sakic hands down

Crosby’s 2014 season was overrated a bit, not on the same level as Sakic’s 01

 

[TheGuiminator]

As great as Sakic’s 01 season already is, he came really close to win an unprecedented Hart, Art Ross, Pearson, Rockets, 1st AST and Selke :

Lost the Ross by 3 points (thanks to Lemieux helping Jagr)

Was only 5 goals short from Pure’s 59

And lost the Selke to John Madden by a hair

Hell, Sakic also had a solid case for the Conn Smythe trophy as well (even though its a playoff award)