Hockey Outsider
Registered User
- Jan 16, 2005
- 9,148
- 14,461
I'm bumping an old post, but this one puzzles me too.
In 1968-69, Berenson finished 4th in Hart voting. That's defensible, at least if we're taking the literal definition of the trophy ("most valuable to his team"). The Blues were by far the best of the six expansion teams, and Berenson appears to have been their best player (he led the team in scoring by a 34 point margin).
Granted, the Blues were still by far the best expansion team in 1969-70. But they did (slightly) worse than the year before. And instead of being by far their best scorer, Berenson was outscored by 36 year old Phil Goyette.
As @TheDevilMadeMe pointed out, Orr and (Tony) Esposito got the vast majority of the Hart votes in 1969-70. So whoever ended up finishing 3rd would slide in with a very small share of the votes. That's true; but why was it Berenson rather than someone else?
