Selke trophy - top fives (1978 to 2023)

Hockey Outsider

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Updated for 2019. Four of the players who placed in the top five - O'Reilly, Stone, Crosby, and Barkov - did so for the first time in their careers.

Patrice Bergeron, despite missing one-fifth of the season, placed 3rd. He now has ten seasons in the top five in Selke voting - the all-time record. He also has eight seasons as a finalist - also the all-time record.
 
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Trap Jesus

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If Bergeron finishes top 10 this year he'll surpass Carbonneau for most top 10 finishes as well (both currently at 10).
 

Trap Jesus

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If Bergeron finishes top 10 this year he'll surpass Carbonneau for most top 10 finishes as well (both currently at 10).
So he just did this. If I'm not mistaken, he has everything except most wins (tied with Gainey at 4). Most top 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 anyways.
 

plusandminus

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Updated for 2019. Four of the players who placed in the top five - O'Reilly, Stone, Crosby, and Barkov - did so for the first time in their careers.

Patrice Bergeron, despite missing one-fifth of the season, placed 3rd. He now has ten seasons in the top five in Selke voting - the all-time record. He also has eight seasons as a finalist - also the all-time record.

Have you experienced with summarizing the percentage of votes the players get?
It would be interesting to see such a study too (as well as for all the trophies/votings).
Might even be combined with the method you use in this thread?
 

ted2019

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I don't know who you think the 3 best defensive forwards to ever play the game are, but Frank Neighbor, Bobby Clark, and Bob Gainey are all in the Hall. I realize Gainey opens the door for Carbonneau, but (rightly or wrongly), it does matter that Gainey was part of a dynasty and won a Conn Smythe

Such a shame that the award didn't come into play until 1978. Clarke would've most likely had 3 Selke's and would've had 7 to 8 top 3-5 finishes.
 
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Hockey Outsider

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Have you experienced with summarizing the percentage of votes the players get?
It would be interesting to see such a study too (as well as for all the trophies/votings).
Might even be combined with the method you use in this thread?

I haven't done that yet (even though it sounds like the kind of thing I would have done already).

The biggest concern was completeness of the data - it's easy to find the top 10 players each year in Selke voting, but it's often hard to find the full lists. Mind you, it probably wouldn't impact the results very much if I'm missing the players with one or two votes in some (many?) of the seasons.

I'll see if I can work on this over the next couple of months (I, like most people now, seem to have an abundance of free time).
 

Hockey Outsider

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Speaking about having an abundance of free time these days... I started working through the data that I have - which has turned out to be quite a bit. Overall I have more than 98% of the votes cast in the history of the trophy (1978-2019).

Two requests to help make this more complete:
  1. There are five years where I'm missing at least 5% of the votes - 1996, 1997, 1999, 2002, and 2006. Any idea on where I could find the results?
  2. For 1982 and 1984 onwards, I have the full voting results (ie number of first, second and third-place votes). Does anyone have this for 1978 to 1981, and 1983?
The top ten players (based on what I have so far) are Bergeron, Lehtinen, Toews, Datsyuk, Carbonneau, Peca, Kesler, Kopitar, Fedorov, and Gainey.
 

Trap Jesus

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We're at the point now where if you remove Bergeron's 4 wins, his top 3 and top 5 finish numbers still rival everyone else in history (regardless of whether they won or lost):

PlayerSelke WinsTop 3 Finishes
Patrice Bergeron49 (5 losses)
Craig Ramsay16
Jere Lehtinen36
Pavel Datsyuk36
Guy Carbonneau36
Ryan Kesler15
Bob Gainey45
Esa Tikkanen04
John Madden14
Jonathan Toews14
Anze Kopitar24
Michael Peca24
Sergei Fedorov23
Jari Kurri02
Craig Conroy02
Joel Otto02
Bobby Gould02
Don Marcotte02
Dave Poulin12
Ryan O'Reilly12
Sean Couturier12
Doug Gilmour12
Doug Jarvis12
Ron Francis12
Steve Kasper12
Steve Yzerman12
Rod Brind'Amour22
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

PlayerSelke WinsTop 5 Finishes
Patrice Bergeron411 (7 losses)
Guy Carbonneau39
Craig Ramsay17
Pavel Datsyuk37
Jonathan Toews17
Michael Peca27
Jere Lehtinen36
Ryan Kesler16
Bob Gainey45
John Madden15
Anze Kopitar25
Sergei Fedorov25
Esa Tikkanen04
Jari Kurri04
Ron Francis14
Steve Kasper14
Steve Yzerman14
David Backes04
Craig Conroy03
Joel Otto03
Doug Gilmour13
Doug Jarvis13
Don Luce03
Mike Ricci03
Mikko Koivu03
Rick Meagher13
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I think there's definitely a "snubbed" sentiment building up with him, despite the wins.
 

BigBadBruins7708

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We're at the point now where if you remove Bergeron's 4 wins, his top 3 and top 5 finish numbers still rival everyone else in history (regardless of whether they won or lost):

PlayerSelke WinsTop 3 Finishes
Patrice Bergeron49 (5 losses)
Craig Ramsay16
Jere Lehtinen36
Pavel Datsyuk36
Guy Carbonneau36
Ryan Kesler15
Bob Gainey45
Esa Tikkanen04
John Madden14
Jonathan Toews14
Anze Kopitar24
Michael Peca24
Sergei Fedorov23
Jari Kurri02
Craig Conroy02
Joel Otto02
Bobby Gould02
Don Marcotte02
Dave Poulin12
Ryan O'Reilly12
Sean Couturier12
Doug Gilmour12
Doug Jarvis12
Ron Francis12
Steve Kasper12
Steve Yzerman12
Rod Brind'Amour22
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
PlayerSelke WinsTop 5 Finishes
Patrice Bergeron411 (7 losses)
Guy Carbonneau39
Craig Ramsay17
Pavel Datsyuk37
Jonathan Toews17
Michael Peca27
Jere Lehtinen36
Ryan Kesler16
Bob Gainey45
John Madden15
Anze Kopitar25
Sergei Fedorov25
Esa Tikkanen04
Jari Kurri04
Ron Francis14
Steve Kasper14
Steve Yzerman14
David Backes04
Craig Conroy03
Joel Otto03
Doug Gilmour13
Doug Jarvis13
Don Luce03
Mike Ricci03
Mikko Koivu03
Rick Meagher13
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
I think there's definitely a "snubbed" sentiment building up with him, despite the wins.

Bergeron has definitely run into voter fatigue the past few years. Despite his defensive numbers not dropping, his offensive numbers jumping up, he cant get #5. I have to wonder if there is an element of not wanting to have someone surpass Gainey in wins at play as well.

Bergeron far and away had the best defensive stats of the 3 finalists and did so against the toughest matchups.
 

VanIslander

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This is a weaker era of Selke candidates.

Peca was phenomenal the year after his first Selke win, but a young Lehtinen was defending AND scoring with Modano on contending Dallas, shifting the spotlight.
 
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Hockey Outsider

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The first post has been updated for 2020. Bergeron finished 2nd and now has 11 years in the top five, the all-time record. He also has 9 years in the top three, also the all-time record.

None of the other players in the top five (Couturier, O'Reily, Cirelli and Stone) have the minimum number of seasons (3) for me to include them in the first post. I suspect that will change soon.

Also, please see the comments I made in post #57. I'm pretty close to having the complete Selke trophy voting results from 1978 to 2020. If anyone knows where I can find the data to fill in the last few years, that would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Hockey Outsider

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The first post has been updated for 2021.

Barkov (who won the trophy), Stone (third place) and O'Reilly (fifth place) each earned the third top-five showing in their careers.

Bergeron finished 2nd. He now has 12 years placing in the top five in Selke voting (easily beating Carbonneau's nine years). He also has a full decade in the top three; nobody else has more than six years.
 
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Hockey Outsider

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The table on the first page has been updated for 2022.

Patrice Bergeron won his 5th Selke trophy, passing Bob Gainey (though one wonders if Gainey would have won more, had the award existed earlier in his career). Bergeron placed in the top five for the trophy for the 13th time in his career (easily the all-time record), and all those years are consecutive.

Aleksander Barkov and Ryan O'Reilly now have identical records to each other, and to Steve Yzerman.
 

Hockey Outsider

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Jan 16, 2005
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This thread has been updated for 2023.

Patrice Bergeron won the Selke trophy for the 6th time in his career. He now has 12 years as a finalist (nobody else has more than six years), and 14 years placing in the top five (nobody else has more than nine).

Anze Kopitar finished 5th for the trophy. It was his 6th time placing in the top five. (Kopitar is now the third player in NHL history to win the Selke and Lady Byng in the same year - Ron Francis and Pavel Datsyuk are the others).

Jordan Staal placed in the top five for the first time since 2010. I suspect (but haven't double checked) that this is the longest gap between top five finishes in the history of the Selke trophy.
 

BraveCanadian

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Jun 30, 2010
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This thread has been updated for 2023.

Patrice Bergeron won the Selke trophy for the 6th time in his career. He now has 12 years as a finalist (nobody else has more than six years), and 14 years placing in the top five (nobody else has more than nine).

Anze Kopitar finished 5th for the trophy. It was his 6th time placing in the top five. (Kopitar is now the third player in NHL history to win the Selke and Lady Byng in the same year - Ron Francis and Pavel Datsyuk are the others).

Jordan Staal placed in the top five for the first time since 2010. I suspect (but haven't double checked) that this is the longest gap between top five finishes in the history of the Selke trophy.

Bergeron and Kopitar have been so good two-ways for so long.. Bergeron leaning more on defense and Kopitar the better of the two offensively but both great all around.
 

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