Bear of Bad News
Your Third or Fourth Favorite HFBoards Admin
- Sep 27, 2005
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Players with 2 harts and 2 Smythes
Lemieux, gretzky, Orr, crosby.
Players with 2 harts and 2 Smythes
Lemieux, gretzky, Orr, crosby.
His first Conn Smythe was a lifetime achievement award and totally undeserving. His second one was coin flip between him and Malkin (I would prefer Malkin but its fair that Crosby have 1 because hes been top 2-3 in 3 playoffs, 08, 09 and 17)
Players with 2 harts and 2 Smythes
Lemieux, gretzky, Orr, crosby.
His first Conn Smythe was a lifetime achievement award and totally undeserving. His second one was coin flip between him and Malkin (I would prefer Malkin but its fair that Crosby have 1 because hes been top 2-3 in 3 playoffs, 08, 09 and 17)
Conn Smythe has only been around since 1965.
Add Beliveau if you include retroactive Conn Smythes
Conn Smythe is the most erratic trophy. Obviously it's a great achievement and understandably held to a high regard. But it has more "why" winners than any other trophy in NHL history.
I think the Smythe gains more prestige when it involves all time greats. Players like Justin Williams can win a Smythe but there never brought up in an all time sense. But when it comes to all timers the Smythe is usually a big tie breaker between players IE. Crosby and ovechkin.
I think the Smythe gains more prestige when it involves all time greats. Players like Justin Williams can win a Smythe but there never brought up in an all time sense. But when it comes to all timers the Smythe is usually a big tie breaker between players IE. Crosby and ovechkin.
In other words, the Smythe is prestigious because Crosby won it, and Crosby is great because he won a prestigious award.
I think the Smythe gains more prestige when it involves all time greats. Players like Justin Williams can win a Smythe but there never brought up in an all time sense. But when it comes to all timers the Smythe is usually a big tie breaker between players IE. Crosby and ovechkin.
Bolded: Counting Conn Smythes isn't why Crosby (All time great) > Ovechkin in that tie most people would use cups.
Underlined: Duh because it makes people question the award a little bit in terms of absolute comparisons between players.
that first bold is exactly what MXD implied, because an All time great (Crosby) won it it has more worth
The funny thing is, I don't even think that highly of Crosby and in my opinion he should have three Conn Smythes.
Is being a great playoff performer important? Yeah. But at the end of the day I don't think getting an extra trophy at the end of Cup run sways things in my mind one way or the other
The funny thing is, I don't even think that highly of Crosby and in my opinion he should have three Conn Smythes.
Is being a great playoff performer important? Yeah. But at the end of the day I don't think getting an extra trophy at the end of Cup run sways things in my mind one way or the other
he just won his 8th ESPY for best hockey player, easily the most all time
how much longer are some of you going to pretend he isn't the best ever?
how much longer are some of you going to pretend he isn't the best ever?
The people who go on about the fact that he shouldn't have 2 Smythes are out of their minds IMO.
The problem is it's a double standard.
I've never once heard "Martin St-Louis shouldn't have 2 Art Rosses". yet he only won in 2013 bc Crosby had a freak injury.
And I never hear "Gretzky should only have 8 harts, not 9". He got his 9th the year Lemieux scored 199 points, and Gretzky scores 168 - also 85 goals to 54.
Crosby has 2 smythes and deserves full merits for them. As does St-Louis with his Ross's, and Gretzky with his harts.
I think there has to be some kind of terminology effort here.
The Art Ross is a "numerical" award. You score the most points, you win. The choice of the winner can absolutely not be questionned. Of course, there are Art Rosses that are weaker and stronger than others due to a myriad of reasons, and MSL's 2013 might be a slightly "weak" one, partly because of Crosby. It's also very impressive since he was about 82 years old by then. Patrick Kane's recent Art Ross was certainly strong. I can't see how there can be an undeserved Art Ross since Max Bentley (who didn't even get an actual Art Ross, he just led the NHL in points) or Roy Conacher (and even then it's debateable, considering his teammate was 2nd and everyone else was so much behind them there's no way of telling if Lindsay had a shot).
Back to Crosby... If one uses "undeserving", it probably implies that somebody else should've won, and that Crosby was a bad choice. I think myself that he was absolutely not undeserving. I would've given it to Letang after the 3rd round, but the trophy is awarded after the Finals.
I'd say, however, that it was a "weak" Conn Smythe award. Conn Smythe winners usually have better playoffs than the ones Crosby had in '16. If you only consider the 4 playoffs during which Crosby got to the finals, 2016 was almost certainly his weakest. But the Conn Smythe is awarded to one player, every year. Not two. Not zero. Not three. One. Someone had to win it in 2016, and only one player could win it in 2009.
And it's not a Crosby-special. The same thing applies for other awards. The 2015 Vezina (Price) was a strong Vezina. The 2016 Vezina (Holtby) was a weak Vezina, probably the weakest DESERVED Vezina since, I don't know.... Kolzig? But it was a totally deserved Vezina. Same thing for the Calder : Matthews is a rather strong Calder, and I can't think of a weak one on top of my head (Drury?), but it doesn't mean their respective Calders were not deserved.