Round 2, Vote 7 (HOH Top Wingers) WARNING POST #435
- Thread starter Hawkey Town 18
- Start date
Sonic Disturbance
Grandmaster User
- Jan 1, 2009
- 2,315
- 140
For people complaining about Bure finishing 12th in Hart Voting... Gretzky won the Art Ross with 130 points and got NO votes (I believe the only time when the Ross winner got no Hart votes) for the Hart. I think that's a bigger omission that Bure finishing "only" 12th instead of 8th or 9th.
I think the voting that year related heavily with the NHL standings. The only way to justify the omission of Gretzky is to say that the LA Kings finished 16 points out of a playoff position. They finished fifth-last in the NHL in spite of Gretzky's play.
To a lesser degree, the Canucks were in a middling position because the entire team -- aside from Bure -- slumped heavily. Part of the reason Bure was not given votes might have been that more was expected from the team as a whole. Less emphasis was placed on Bure being the hottest player in the league in the second half of the season (player of the month in March as well), and more on the rest of the team struggling. What the PHWA voters did not take into account was the effect that taking Bure off of the team would have during that time. The other reason, albeit related, might be that the other candidates' teams finished much higher in points than the Canucks.
For example, Gilmour's Leafs finished with 98 points. Bourque, Neely and Oates' Bruins finished with 97 points. Patrick Roy's Montreal Canadiens finished with 96 points.
The only player that received recognition for pulling a bad team close to the playoffs on his own was John Vanbiesbrouck (and to a smaller degree Jeremy Roenick, although he only scored 46 goals in 84 games, a mark Bure eclipsed in a span of 47 games). Every other candidate's team sat comfortably in a playoff position.
The effect of team standings on Hart Voting is discussed here:
Bure's 1993-94 Canucks only reached the playoffs because of him. As mentioned numerous times before, in the latter half of the season he scored 49 goals in the last 51 games of the season, scoring 29% of their goals and recording a point on 46% of all of their goals during that time.
Without him, the Canucks don't reach the playoffs. From an outsider's perspective, without accounting for how heavily team relied on Bure, it might have simply looked like the team was underachieving and thus nestled 14 points ahead of the Mighty Ducks. If Bure wasn't scoring at such a rapid pace and the rest of the team was left to figure itself out, the team probably would not have made the postseason.
Trevor Linden had just 5 goals in the second half of the season. Bure had 49. When the whole team fell off, he picked them up and carried them on his back while playing with Odjick and Craven.
That's fairly worthy of recognition. It seems most of the players above him were given more votes because their teams were better.
Last edited by a moderator:
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
I think Fedorov still places ahead of Bure.
His season deserves recognition for being Hart-worthy, though, and certainly his individual play to carry the Canucks deserves credit for being a tremendous solo performance. When some members use trophy voting, sometimes they downplay the significance of a player's performance for his team.
Certainly, in some other years, that performance is enough to win a Hart Trophy. I think most of us can admit that there are strong and weak years in terms of performances. 1993-94 in particular was a strong year for Hart Trophy candidates. Bure's 1993-94 season was far stronger than his 2000-01 season in terms of Hart worthiness due to his contributions resulting in many additional victories, yet Bure finished 9th in 2000-01 so someone who only looks at numbers would assume Bure did more in 2000-01 (9th) than he did in 1993-94 (12th). That's not an accurate measurement of a player's importance to his team in their respective seasons.
I think having Bourque and Neely ahead of Bure is questionable, considering Bourque, Neely and Oates all made the top twelve. That's a case of triple-dipping. To say there were three MVPs on that team lessens the degree to which we can suggest a team relied on one player's individual contributions for success. For the Canucks, it was all Bure because the rest of the team pulled a disappearing act. He was the league's hottest scorer in the second half, won the Rocket Richard Trophy (technically), and was the NHL's Player of the Month in March. He bounced back from an injury in the first half and then proceeded to score 49 in 51 games without any additional help to pull his team into the playoffs. His second-half pace doubled his first-half pace; 49 goals, 78 points in the final 51 games. Without his explosion of offense, the team falls out of the playoff picture.
Last edited by a moderator:
The Jets thought so as well. In 1991-92, they distributed tape promoting Essensa and Housley.
http://search.proquest.com/docview/244146325
unknown33
Registered User
- Dec 8, 2009
- 3,942
- 150
Absolutly not. In which years? Top 3-5 maybe.
Not exactly helping your point.
unknown33
Registered User
- Dec 8, 2009
- 3,942
- 150
2010/11 would be the only modern one I can think of and I mean we can take pretty much any decent Hart candidate (several from 93/94) and they would have had a chance to win over Perry.
2012/13 was pretty bad too, but I disagree with Ovi winning it to begin with so that's a different story...
It's not like Bure had any chance if his season happened the 5 previous or 5 following years instead...
I've never discussed Essensa or Housley. The purpose there was to provide evidence that teams were aware of an Eastern bias, and thus developed measures to counteract that. Housley and Essensa are irrelevant; anybody else's names could have been used in their place. You and Hardy were discussing Vancouver's campaign in 2010, and your response was that only Vancouver was aware of such a "bias." My point is that other Western teams felt the same way. The process of developing a promotional campaign is the key to that post you've quoted, not the candidates themselves.
In any event, the campaign seemed to work because Essensa was third in Vezina voting and Housley was third in Norris voting that season. Whether or not they were worthy of it is irrelevant, although it seems certain all of the work they did to promote those players had some effect on the voters' perceptions.
Winnipeg isn't even as far west as Vancouver, so they had less to worry about.
Last edited by a moderator:
Bear of Bad News
Your Third or Fourth Favorite HFBoards Admin
- Sep 27, 2005
- 13,542
- 27,087
An admin warning:
Stop accusing other posters of impure motives. There will be repercussions.
I'm cleaning up the thread right now, and expect to hear from me if I'm especially annoyed with you by the time I get to the end.
EDIT: Clean. I probably overcleaned, but I was disgusted by a lot of this.
If you want to participate in this project, then act like an adult who is communicating with other adults. Otherwise, I will remove you from the project. Do you understand?
Stop accusing other posters of impure motives. There will be repercussions.
I'm cleaning up the thread right now, and expect to hear from me if I'm especially annoyed with you by the time I get to the end.
EDIT: Clean. I probably overcleaned, but I was disgusted by a lot of this.
If you want to participate in this project, then act like an adult who is communicating with other adults. Otherwise, I will remove you from the project. Do you understand?
Last edited:
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
But that's not what the voting is about. We can all have a debate about what a "Hart-worthy" performance looks like, and how many players have them each season. But the actual Hart voting in 1994 was a group of writers selecting their personal top-3 MOST worthy of that season. There is no "credit" vote.
Someone who has a nuanced understanding of how to read awards results would not make that assumption. Many (most? I hope?) on this forum are sophisticated enough to get it right. That's why there's some mild outrage going on.
Clearly Bourque was the actual MVP because he received more votes than Neely and Oates combined. So take away the vote-splitting effect and you have Bourque even farther ahead of Bure than he already was.
So that's Fedorov and Bourque established as 2 guys who should get a vote over Bure on a 3-vote ballot. So Bure's case for ANY Hart votes hinges on being more worthy than, among others, ALL of Hasek, Vabiesbrouck, Roy, Gilmour and Stevens.
Well, is it not fair to say that Bure's 12th place ranking is not representative or indicative of his individual performance? If we compare years, it's likely there are years where he is much higher in voting with that same performance. 12th is not a fixed number to represent that performance; it isn't 12th in every other year. I agree with you that several performances from the 1993-94 season would rank ahead of Perry's 2010-11 season performance.
By putting too much emphasis on the ranking and not enough on the individual performances (and yes, circumstances), there's a risk that comparing players' performances based on the rankings alone misrepresents the quality of those seasons relative to one another.
Perry's 1st-place finish > Bure's 12th-place finish or Gilmour's 4th-place finish?
I don't think anyone could agree with that statement. It's important to look at the performances themselves and not to rely too heavily on cross-comparing Hart Trophy finishes.
That's my point. Bure's 1993-94 season was a terrific season in a year full of excellent performances. It seems some have attempted to diminish the value of Bure's performance that year or tarnish it by simply stating that he finished 12th in voting. "If he finished 12th in voting, his season wasn't that good" is what I've heard from a few; some appear to equate it with lesser double-digit finishes because they assume that the finishes have the same value every year. The objective statistics state otherwise (and as an aside: how much extra credit would we give him if he scored 50 in 50 instead of 49 in 51 to end the season? Doesn't that seem a little arbitrary?).
I reckon Bure's 1993-94 season was more Hart worthy than his 2000-01 season. If we compare the two seasons, does 1993-94 not rank ahead, particularly when we consider who he played with and the degree to which he helped pull his team into the playoffs? Considering he scored 56 in 59 when healthy that season (the groin injury from October 23, 1993 to late December 1993), I think the ability he demonstrated in 1993-94 is understated. Should that season not be categorized with his best seasons? It seems some just want to dismiss it altogether because he finished 12th in Hart voting.
Last edited by a moderator:
MXD
Original #4
- Oct 27, 2005
- 50,811
- 16,548
If you look at the scoring tables, you'll notice that the biggest change is that the Leafs went from "way ahead" to "pretty high".
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
MXD
Original #4
- Oct 27, 2005
- 50,811
- 16,548
If only there was a +/- stat in the Schriner years, then Gretzky might not be so alone. Purely hypothetical of course, but in 36-37, the Amerks were -39 goals in 48 games. The Kings were -28 in 84.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Well you have to take into consideration what those statements are replying to. In this case, the statement "Bure wasn't THAT good... look at his Hart record" essentially says "Bure wasn't one of the top handful of players in the league... look at his Hart record".
So far in the past couple of pages we've seen:
1) Bure's 12th place is "problematic" due to east coast bias.
2) Bure's 1994 was a Hart winning performance in other years (plural).
3) Bure got the shaft because voters just focused on which teams were the best.
Now, I suspect that I'm somewhere near the middle of the road when it comes to Bure. I'm certainly not against voting him over guys who are canonically ranked higher.
But arguments like the above are just... awful. I mean seriously. It's one thing to put the microscope over a player and reveal some things that have been overlooked in the past -- I think your research has done a good job of that. But to essentially argue that this player was an order of magnitude better than anyone has ever judged him before, well, that requires some really compelling evidence. Instead of that we're getting "selective" analysis that ignores missed GP, novel stat-counting methods, unfounded speculation about voter bias, and so forth. It feels a lot like crap just being flung at the wall with both hands. And it's becoming an irritant, a distraction from what we're trying to accomplish in this project.
Frankly, I think Bure has been discussed more than enough for everyone to solidify their opinions on him. Regardless when he's elected to the list, I hope we will move on from closely analyzing him tomorrow so we can get on with things.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
TheDevilMadeMe
Registered User
We have no idea if that true. We only have records of the top 5 (only one of whom is a forward, FWIW)
Last edited:
Hawkey Town 18
Registered User
As usual, waited overnight for more votes to come in...will release the results in a few hours.
TheDevilMadeMe
Registered User
The voting period has been 45 hours long the last few weeks. Why are people still routinely missing it?
Last edited:
Put in an official "all votes due by _______ (date/time)" or whatever you want as a cutoff. Then move on.
unknown33
Registered User
- Dec 8, 2009
- 3,942
- 150
Maybe a official 'voting starts' post in the thread with a definite deadline like that one.
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=92656415&postcount=407
I never organized such a project so I can't judge how inconvientent it is, but sending a PM at the start of the voting might help some people who miss the deadline.
MXD
Original #4
- Oct 27, 2005
- 50,811
- 16,548
I think a good step was made by shrinking the discussion phase.
Is having a slightly longer period to vote could help ? I know, I know, one has to peruse the thread in order to get more info, more insight, etc. Though I must say that this thread mostly brought face-desk material, as opposed to insight, especially in the last few days.
Do we have European voters ? If no, and if HT doesn't oppose, setting the deadline in the morning could help somewhat. That way, nobody would expect the results. If we have European voters, well...
Is having a slightly longer period to vote could help ? I know, I know, one has to peruse the thread in order to get more info, more insight, etc. Though I must say that this thread mostly brought face-desk material, as opposed to insight, especially in the last few days.
Do we have European voters ? If no, and if HT doesn't oppose, setting the deadline in the morning could help somewhat. That way, nobody would expect the results. If we have European voters, well...
