Read the flat earth comment I made in that post. It's not my job to disprove your dumb claims, it's your job to appropriately defend those claims. All of this:
I don't know if you knew this, but this is actually a fallacy as well. Just because you believe a statement to be wrong, doesn't mean its wrong just by saying it is. I believe it's called "Appeal to the stone". This isn't a case where burden of proof is a thing, because we're debating opinions, not arguing against a scientific theory like flat earth. Without at least a semi-decent argument with stats or at least an intelligent background this is just you being unable to refute my point. If you really had something to come back with, you would've done it because its not like it would make you look worse, nor I better.
Is not a justification for someone winning the Hart. It's your opinion, which is absolutely worthless if you ignore facts. It's not my job to disprove your homer ramblings, it's your job to actually back up your claims with facts. You're not doing that, you're basically just saying "Marchand deserves the Hart because he's good" and ignoring every other argument.
Actually, I have been providing concrete stats and examples to support my claims, while I haven't seen any from you. Case in point, you have been unable to tell me why you'd call a player like Kucherov more valuable than a Marchand, while I've explained my position pretty clearly. Mainly that when you have a shutdown player on the ice, the opponent is less likely to score. Marchand not insanely less talented defensively than Bergeron, although no other forward really compares to Bergeron. Its why their line is that much better than Kopitar's line. Marchand has a +32 plus/minus. That line didn't have a 5v5 goal against for a really long time. He's a big reason why their penalty kill is still top 10 even without Bergeron. The shot differential with him on the ice is absolutely jaw dropping, big reason why the Bruins are #2 in the league. He takes away opportunities from the other team, has elite puck possesion skills that are a nightmare for defenses around the league. And that's just what he does on defense. By the way, Marchand has 51 takeaways on 53 games, Crosby, the best player in the world, has 38 in 70. Kopitar has 43 in 68. He is MASTERCLASS at ending opponents chances.[/QUOTE]
Yes, easily. You don't win games by being good defensively, you win games by scoring goals. You can win games with no defense and all offense, you can't win games with no offense and all defense. This is a classic 2013 Toews vs Crosby discussion. Marchand being better defensively (and I don't think he's better defensively than Malkin, you classifying Malkin as bad defensively severely hurts your argument) doesn't negate the big point difference between the two. Kucherov having 20 more points means that he impacted 20 more goals than Marchand. How many goals does Marchand impact defensively over Kucherov? It's definitely not that many.
Looking at the stats, Malkin is actually closer to Marchand than I thought before I checked. He does benefit from being on the second line, which gives him favorable matchups and ensures he's pretty much always the best player on the ice, but credit where credit is due. However, Marchand has the higher DPS and Plus Minus so i'd say he takes the edge.
But you say that you can win games with all offense and not with all defense. When has professional hockey ever been either? Hockey is a complete game but barring the occasional blowout an elite defense with average scoring will go farther than an elite offense with an average defense. Compare last season's Washington to last season's Nashville to see that.
You need to score goals to win. You don't need to prevent goals to win. The Penguins are a perfect example of this, they won the last 2 cups by scoring over 3 goals a game with offensive weapons like Malkin, Crosby and Kessel.
You're acting like Pittsburgh had a bad defense. Their Goals against wasn't terrible, and sure their feature is their offense but their defense was definetly above the league average. Not exactly elite, but when your offense is that good that's a trade off you can make. They were still on aggregate a better team than Nashville though. If Nashville had as much defensive talent as Pittsburgh did offensively, they would've taken the series.
Poorly timed post. Marchand having a game.
