Individual Awards: Worst performance to be nominated

[Dennis Bonvie]

Jim Carey winning over Hasek/Brodeur/Puppa seem a strange choice and a case of overvaluing strange metric the nhl keep track like shutout:
NHL Vezina Trophy Winners | Hockey-Reference.com

1998-99	NHL	Dominik Hasek	34	BUF	G	30	18	14	1.87	.937	0.0	0.0	16.8	16.8
1997-98	NHL	Dominik Hasek	33	BUF	G	33	23	13	2.09	.932	0.0	0.0	18.6	18.6
1996-97	NHL	Dominik Hasek	32	BUF	G	37	20	10	2.27	.930	0.0	0.0	17.2	17.2
1995-96	NHL	Jim Carey	21	WSH	G	35	24	9	2.26	.906	0.0	0.0	9.9	9.9
1994-95	NHL	Dominik Hasek	30	BUF	G	19	14	7	2.11	.930	0.0	0.0	10.3	10.3
1993-94	NHL	Dominik Hasek	29	BUF	G	30	20	6	1.95	.930	0.0	0.0	13.1	13.1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

That year:
Goals Saved Above Average

1.	Dominik Hasek* • BUF	43
2.	Daren Puppa • TBL	32
3.	Guy Hebert • MDA	28
4.	Martin Brodeur* • NJD	25
5.	Felix Potvin • TOR	25
6.	Ron Hextall • PHI	19
7.	Patrick Roy* • 2TM	18
8.	Mike Richter • NYR	17
9.	Sean Burke • HAR	17
10.	Jeff Hackett • CHI	16

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Goalie Point Shares

1.	Dominik Hasek* • BUF	14.8
2.	Felix Potvin • TOR	13.8
3.	Martin Brodeur* • NJD	12.8
4.	Grant Fuhr* • STL	12.5
5.	Sean Burke • HAR	12.5
6.	Guy Hebert • MDA	12.3
7.	Daren Puppa • TBL	11.6
8.	Patrick Roy* • 2TM	11.3
9.	Nikolai Khabibulin • WIN	10.4
10.	Jim Carey • WSH	9.9

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Feel like a bit of we have a chance to not give it to Hasek like it seem to have happened to Gretzky.

When did it happen to Gretzky?

He won the Hart trophy 8 years in a row.

 

[Nick Hansen]

I know Rod Langway was a great player I. but I have a hard time believing a defensive defenceman could be 2nd in Hart Trophy voting.

I feel like the bizarre era he was active in made him seem greater than he was. He wasn't even close to the top 100 NHL players list that was made here last year for instance, I don't think. And this was a guy who won the Norris twice ahead of players like Howe, Bourque, Coffey and aging Potvin...

 

[MXD]

Jose Theodore carried to the playoffs a team whose best Center would've been the 3rd Center in Calgary.

 

[MadLuke]

When did it happen to Gretzky?

He won the Hart trophy 8 years in a row.

More the Conn Smythe in mind for him and the Pearson than Hart for him.

 

[trentmccleary]

The OP specified "nominations" and not only winners... I seem to be banging on about Eric Lindros lately, and I'm not even his fan particularly, but I wonder if voters for 1992-93 would still maintain that both Joe Juneau (then age 25) and Felix Potvin were better rookies. I know Lindros played only 61 games, which probably cost him 2nd place to Selanne, but still... Ah well, it was a great season for rookies.

Jose Theodore in 2001-02. Did he have an awesome season? Yes. Did he deserve to be a 2nd-team All Star and win the Vezina? Sure, I guess. But did voters have to also award him the Hart? A little bit overkill, I think. There seemed to be this massive media/fan love-affair with Theodore that season. Know how many goalies have won the Hart and Vezina in the same season? 4 in history, and two of them (Plante and Hasek) are legends of the game (the other is Carey Price, but at least he had a great won-lost record and was also voted the Pearson by his peers). Anyway, I think just the Vezina would have been enough for Theodore.

The Hart is a narrative award. Montreal missed the playoffs the season before. Their best player, Saku Koivu, was sick with cancer and would miss the entire season. It would take a miracle to imagine the 2002 Habs making the playoffs. That miracle was realized when Jose Theodore posted Hasek-like numbers to get the team into the postseason.

Speaking of Iginla in this thread; 2nd for the Hart in 2004... for what? He won the Rocket with two other guys. Was tied with Steve Sullivan as the 6th/7th highest scoring RW. Was within a handful of points near Tkachuk, Doan, Guerin and Scott Walker. Posted basically the same season he did in 2003. The reason they made the playoffs was the addition of Kiprusoff.

 

[Normand Lacombe]

Randy Carlyle winning the Norris in 1981 has always left me scratching my head. Carlyle's -16 is by far the worst plus/minus of all Norris winners. What exactly made Carlyle stand out over Potvin?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Regarding the underlined, my biggest issue with that isn't even that he won the Hart - it's that he won the Hart over Howe who beat the field by 14 points, or Kelly who had 49 points in 62 games.

The same writers who voted for Rollins to win the Hart voted Kelly the most outstanding player of the season in a widely published newspaper poll at the time.

 

[The Panther]

When did it happen to Gretzky?

He won the Hart trophy 8 years in a row.

It almost happened in 1980-81. The 'old-skool' voters were keen to push the Mike Liut narrative as they didn't want the ex-WHA wunderkind, who played like a European, to win yet another Hart trophy (his 2nd) and be crowned as the new phenomenon. You'd think when a guy was still eligible for World Juniors (and Ontario high school) and had the highest-scoring season in history and led his expansion team to the playoffs for the 2nd time in a row and had the highest plus/minus ever for a full-season player on a losing team, he'd easily grab the Hart, but no. He also 'lost' the Pearson to Liut. The 1980-81 Mike Liut narrative remains one of the greatest examples of one particular player receiving far too much individual credit for a team's (brief, in this case) surge in the standings.

It happened in 1987-88. Of course, Mario Lemieux was a more-than-deserving winner, but he had a lower PPG than Gretzky and his team missed the playoffs. When Gretzky missed 16 games to injury and was thus supplanted as scoring leader, voters fell all over themselves to line-up and vote anyone besides Gretzky as Hart winner. Voting Lemieux was one thing, but Grant Fuhr over Gretzky....?

It sort-of happened in 1990-91, too. Brett Hull's 86 goals was too sexy for voters to ignore, so he won the Hart. Okay, I can see that. But Gretzky really deserved it, I think (Hull, for one thing, wasn't even the top-scoring player on his team), but by this point a 163 points-in-78 games, +30, 1st place team, scoring-win by 32 points season wasn't enough to impress voters accustomed to Gretzky's superhuman feats.

(While Gretzky clearly didn't deserve the 1993-94 Hart trophy, it remains the only NHL season in history where the Art Ross winner didn't receive a single vote -- not even third place -- for the Hart.)

 

[The Panther]

Randy Carlyle winning the Norris in 1981 has always left me scratching my head. Carlyle's -16 is by far the worst plus/minus of all Norris winners. What exactly made Carlyle stand out over Potvin?

Yeah, this one -- along with All Rollins -- might be the grand-daddy of them all. I mean, Carlyle was an above-average defenceman for his era, for a few years, but in no way should he have been sniffing, let alone winning, a Norris. The double-whammy of he and Doug Wilson winning the Norris back-to-back seemed to have caused the 180-degree turnaround by voters to Rod Langway the next two seasons.

Now, I have no problem with Rod Langway winning the Norris (despite his being on a D-core with Brian Engblom and Scott Stevens, yet going -2), but I agree with the poster earlier who said that Langway's finishing as high as 2nd in Hart voting (for 1983-84) was fairly ridiculous.

 

[Jets4Life]

Frankly, I get why that didn't go to a forward. It was only the second sub-100 points Art Ross season since expansion (and the first time it happened the Hart went to a Defenseman) - so it wasn't going to a forward most likely. Lidstrom won the Norris with only 50 points and a partner who also finished highly in Norris voting in Chelios (in fact, Chelios only had one fewer 1st place vote than Lidstrom).

So it was going to a goalie, and Theodore *did* have the best season. I know Calgary fans argue that Iginla was robbed and all of that, but I honestly think they got it right.

The NHL got it wrong. Iginla was robbed.

 

[Jets4Life]

Theodore won the Hart Trophy because he had no serious competition for it. Only guy threatening him was Iginla who late-season stat padded on a team that was already long gone from the playoffs at that point.

I have nothing in particular against Theodore and he deserved that award in the sense that no one else should have gotten it instead. NHL was a bad product at the time. Todd Bertuzzi scored at the highest clip of any player that year.

That's not accurate. Iginla had 9 goals and 8 assists in his final 16 games.

That means at the second week of March, Iginla was at 79 points. 43 goals and 36 assists in 66 games. His stats actually fell off, when the Flames were eliminated from the playoffs.

People may forget that the Hart Trophy is rewarded to the player "Most Valuable to his Team." Iginla outscored every other Flame player by 21 points, and nearly doubled the goal production of Conroy, the closest Flames player in scoring. Iginla also accounted for 26% of the Flames total goals. Not even Wayne Gretzky achieved a goal scoring percentage that high, even in his 92 goal season.

 

[MadLuke]

In term of value for the team, that year:

Goals Saved Above Average

1.	Jose Theodore • MTL	46
2.	Patrick Roy* • COL	28
3.	Nikolai Khabibulin • TBL	24
4.	Sean Burke • PHX	21
5.	Evgeni Nabokov • SJS	19

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Goals created:

1.	Jarome Iginla • CGY	40.6
2.	Markus Naslund • VAN	34.9
3.	Mats Sundin* • TOR	32.6
4.	Todd Bertuzzi • VAN	32.5
5.	Glen Murray • 2TM	30.6

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Point Shares:

1.	Jose Theodore • MTL	17.4
2.	Nikolai Khabibulin • TBL	14.5
3.	Jarome Iginla • CGY	14.4
4.	Evgeni Nabokov • SJS	13.3
5.	Patrick Roy* • COL	13.3

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The team save percentage went from .931 with Theodore to .896 without Theodore. It is not easy to translate a goaltending performance into a offensive player point production and will be more a range than an actual number, but considering the highest scorer on the Habs was Yanic Perreault with 56pts, Theodore offensive equivalent if you put an average starter instead of him in nets that season must be higher than having a 77 pts player.

 

[The Pale King]

Jordan Staal's third place Calder finish ahead of fourth place Anze Kopitar in 06-07 was purely a product of voters tuned into the Crosby-Malkin heroics. Cy Young numbers that season for Staal, and a league-leading seven SHG. Aside from that, the Pittsburgh PK was (slightly below) league average.

Jordan Staal: 82 Games, 29 goals, 13 assists. 42 points. Good for seventh in scoring that year on his team. 14 mins TOI.

Anze Kopitar: 72 Games, 20 goals, 41 assists. 61 points. 3rd in team scoring. 20 mins TOI.

Kopitar was, is, and always will be better than J. Staal, but no one was watching the Kings that season.

 

[trentmccleary]

The NHL got it wrong. Iginla was robbed.

Calgary didn't make the playoffs and Montreal did. That's why Theodore won. The NHL and every other league in existence hate awarding MVP trophies to players who don't make the playoffs.

That's not accurate. Iginla had 9 goals and 8 assists in his final 16 games.

That means at the second week of March, Iginla was at 79 points. 43 goals and 36 assists in 66 games. His stats actually fell off, when the Flames were eliminated from the playoffs.

People may forget that the Hart Trophy is rewarded to the player "Most Valuable to his Team." Iginla outscored every other Flame player by 21 points, and nearly doubled the goal production of Conroy, the closest Flames player in scoring. Iginla also accounted for 26% of the Flames total goals. Not even Wayne Gretzky achieved a goal scoring percentage that high, even in his 92 goal season.

Calgary greatly increased Iginla's TOI and fed him shots to win him the Rocket & Art Ross because they'd been eliminated from playoff contention and had nothing else to play for. It certainly doesn't seem like it was a game plan, as their winning % mostly suffered as they did it.

This is just a blunt division into 1/3's. It's possible to more precisely pick out when Calgary decided their season was over and they were building a game plan around making Iginla the leading scorer.

2001-02	GP	G	Pts	sh/gp	TOI	Cgy Pts/82
1/3	27	23	40	3.48	20:52	106
2/3	27	9	18	3.52	22:05	58
3/3	28	20	38	4.36	24:04	73

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Staniowski]

Yeah, this one -- along with All Rollins -- might be the grand-daddy of them all. I mean, Carlyle was an above-average defenceman for his era, for a few years, but in no way should he have been sniffing, let alone winning, a Norris. The double-whammy of he and Doug Wilson winning the Norris back-to-back seemed to have caused the 180-degree turnaround by voters to Rod Langway the next two seasons.

Now, I have no problem with Rod Langway winning the Norris (despite his being on a D-core with Brian Engblom and Scott Stevens, yet going -2), but I agree with the poster earlier who said that Langway's finishing as high as 2nd in Hart voting (for 1983-84) was fairly ridiculous.

Why do you say the Randy Carlyle and Doug Wilson Norris Trophies seemed to have led to Rod Langway winning?

 

[The Macho King]

Why do you say the Randy Carlyle and Doug Wilson Norris Trophies seemed to have led to Rod Langway winning?

Over-correcting from all offense players getting awarded to an all defense player, to the detriment of great two-way players in Bourque and Howe (and to an extent Potvin, although he was past his time of challenging for the award by the time Langway was winning).

 

[Staniowski]

Over-correcting from all offense players getting awarded to an all defense player, to the detriment of great two-way players in Bourque and Howe (and to an extent Potvin, although he was past his time of challenging for the award by the time Langway was winning).

I understand that you're talking about the idea of "over-correcting", but why do you think this is what happened? Is it completely speculation, or have some of the Norris voters said this is what they did?

 

[The Macho King]

I understand that you're talking about the idea of "over-correcting", but why do you think this is what happened? Is it completely speculation, or have some of the Norris voters said this is what they did?

I think you can infer it based on the fact that Langway is by far the lowest scoring defenseman to ever win the Norris by an order of magnitude. He's an extreme outlier. And you can infer it to a degree based on who he beat - unless you think Mark Howe and Ray Bourque weren't excellent defensemen in their own zone while contributing roughly 50 points or more offensively than Langway.

It was probably somewhat narrative based (Washington's D improved significantly when he arrived, although it ignores contributions of Engblom and Stevens who arrived at the same time).

I mean, if you want chapter and verse, you're not going to get it, but god graced us all with the ability to use inductive reasoning, and I for one am going to use that gift.

 

[Jets4Life]

Calgary greatly increased Iginla's TOI and fed him shots to win him the Rocket & Art Ross because they'd been eliminated from playoff contention and had nothing else to play for. It certainly doesn't seem like it was a game plan, as their winning % mostly suffered as they did it.

This is just a blunt division into 1/3's. It's possible to more precisely pick out when Calgary decided their season was over and they were building a game plan around making Iginla the leading scorer.

2001-02	GP	G	Pts	sh/gp	TOI	Cgy Pts/82
1/3	27	23	40	3.48	20:52	106
2/3	27	9	18	3.52	22:05	58
3/3	28	20	38	4.36	24:04	73

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Do you have a source for these stats? Not that I do not believe you, just would be curious to see. I am relying on ESPN's game log:

Jarome Iginla

All I know is in the last 1/5 of the season, Iginla's totals were below what they were compared to the first half of the season, and the Flames went 7-10-3 in their final 20 games. Iginla was always a clutch player, and perhaps the fact that the Flames were eliminated with a dozen or so games remaining may have been a determent to his play.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Not that Buzek was a good choice or anything, but he was on something like a 30 point pace by mid season, and then fell off after that. And he was constantly missing time. Sometimes, like his all star season or his two seasons in Calgary, is was just the thousand cuts variety that killed any momentum his career could have had. Then there were the bad ones - a car accident in his D+1 season, and a neck injury in his follow up season for the Thrashers, that wiped out years his career. I wouldn’t go wild speculating on what Buzek should have been, but “something” isn’t too much to guess I don’t think.

I looked at his game logs, and seems the drop off happened a good bit before his ASG selection. Had 4G and 7A in his first 14 games, then 0G and 2A in the next 15 before his selection was announced.

Found this tidbit as well:

You don't need anything more than an introductory statistics course to figure out that as the league expanded, so, too, did the incidence of no-stars going to the all-star game. The game is a quaint carryover from a more innocent sporting time, and if it were scrapped after next month's game in Toronto, nobody would shed a tear. It's hard to imagine how the league's Manhattan-based braintrust can think of this exhibition of no-checking wave-at-your-man shinny as a showcase for the league. It in no way resembles hockey as it's played in the Stanley Cup playoffs. - By going to the North America versus the World format, the NHL made a shrewd decision a couple of seasons back, but the novelty has already worn off. It mostly shows that the top scorers dangle alike, regardless of their continent of origin. Us versus Them has little more psychological weight now than Campbells versus Waleses did. Still, the fundamental problem with the all-star game is the presence of undeserving players and die absence of players of real merit. The former we'll label the Mannoes for the aforementioned reasons, the latter the Arvies, in tribute to Senators left-winger Magnus Arvedson, who was left off the World team for no good reason this year. Mannoes dot the rosters of both the North American and World teams because the league's determination to have players represent each and every franchise. You can understand the thinking of the league on this count. In the hockey-oblivious sun belt or in the home of the game, it's hard to sell your franchise to the fans if it doesn't boast at . least one all-star player. Exactly what would you be getting if your team didn't have one of these guys? Well, probably, the Atlanta Thrashers or the Nashville Predators or the Tampa Bay Lightning. The players selected from these teams aren't just marginal. They're laughable. - Take the two most recent franchise arrivals. The Thrashers are sending rookie defenceman Petr Buzek to the World team. The Predators are also sending Kimmo Timonen to the global blueline. If you are versed in the accomplishments of these two gentlemen, you have likely given up your day job for full-time hockey-pool playing. Then there's the challenge of Rick Dudley's life, the Lightning. Tampa is sending defenceman Petr Svoboda to the World side in the all-star gala. , None of these guys is a match to, say, Toronto's Tomas Kaberle or Buffalo's Alexei Zhitnik, to name a couple. Trouble is the Leafs have three other representatives and the Sabres a pair. Worse, Timonen's availability has been made doubtful due to injury, so Nashville would not only have to send a second choice tough enough to call at best, harder yet if you try to fit that body onto the World blueline. Karlis Skrastins? Richard Lintner? The World might be better to dress Timonen, not play him, and see if anybody notices. The Arvies are another matter. Frequently the deserving players passed over have a game Eke Arved-son's. He doesn't own blow-away numbers in goals scored or assists, but his game is more effective than a legion of players above him on the scoring lists. Executives and scouts around the league recognized his potential in his rookie season and twigged to his impact With the Senators long before he made . the short list for the Selke Trophy last year. Arvedson and Marian Hossa won't be in Toronto, but the Islanders' Manno selection, Marius Czerkawski, will J Radek Bonk is the sole Senators J player so far announced for the all-star game, and he's a worthy representative. Still, there's no justice if one of the S league's best lines is represented by j Bonk alone. Nor is there any justice that one of the league's best teams is af-! forded one roster spot, the same as At- lanta, Nashville, the Islanders or the ' struggling Canadiens. . It's hard to care about this game at any ', time, harder yet when some of the best ; get left home and others can't win con- sideration, no matter how well they !flay. N Arvedson and Hossa will watch Petr Buzek and Petr Svoboda play in an NHL ! All-Star Game. i It's only a crying shame if you think J Jhe game matters at all or if you have a , tonus clause in your contract.

 

[trentmccleary]

Do you have a source for these stats? Not that I do not believe you, just would be curious to see. I am relying on ESPN's game log:

I used Hockeyreference's game logs to tell which dates Iginla hit the marks and then the NHL stats page, where you can now focus on specific time periods. Hopefully the link below will work as intended.

NHL.com - Stats

 

[ImporterExporter]

Ovechkin getting a spot on the Olympic AS roster in 2006 (and they say Crosby gets all the media love, yawn). 5 goals, zero assists on a team that didn't medal.

Yet Alfredsson, who finished in 2nd place in overall scoring (10 points in 8 games) for the gold medal Swedes is nowhere to be found.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I think you can infer it based on the fact that Langway is by far the lowest scoring defenseman to ever win the Norris by an order of magnitude. He's an extreme outlier. And you can infer it to a degree based on who he beat - unless you think Mark Howe and Ray Bourque weren't excellent defensemen in their own zone while contributing roughly 50 points or more offensively than Langway.

It was probably somewhat narrative based (Washington's D improved significantly when he arrived, although it ignores contributions of Engblom and Stevens who arrived at the same time).

I mean, if you want chapter and verse, you're not going to get it, but god graced us all with the ability to use inductive reasoning, and I for one am going to use that gift.

Langway's wins were more like most valuable defenseman than best defenseman.

Watching the Caps play it was obvious the huge positive affect Langway had on that team.

On paper, it didn't look right.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Theodore won the Hart Trophy because he had no serious competition for it. Only guy threatening him was Iginla who late-season stat padded on a team that was already long gone from the playoffs at that point.

Maybe from the Forward and Defense positions, but Patrick Roy and Sean Burke were very serious competition in 2001-02 and rightfully received Lester B. Pearson nominations.

Not sure why people take issue with Jose Theodore (other than the strange trend of the winner in a tight voting race getting their accomplishments minimized). Montreal made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth thanks to a 7-game run of .967 goaltending. He was a .927 goaltender before that, so it’s not like he came out of nowhere.

If I had to pick a recent goaltender with an undeserved nomination, I’d look towards years like 2006-07 and 2007-08 where it’s such a two-horse race. In the former, Henrik Lundqvist and Miikka Kiprusoff picked up nominations with seven 3rd place votes each.


But for the most part, whoever is the 4th place in Defensive All-Star voting probably didn’t need to have another bulletpoint on the resume.

 

[MichaelFarrell]

Taylor Hall won the 2018 MVP because..... he got his team to an 8th seed?

Taylor Hall was lights out that year. He deserved it. Will he ever do it again? Probably not. But I thought he had an MVP year for sure. It really could’ve gone to him or Nate Mac