The Athletic - Boston The 2020 NHL Poll: Players have their say on the best player, worst referee and more

[Jim]

Marchand-Tkachuk-Wilson

This would be some entertaining hockey.

 

[Glove Malfunction]

Wes McCauley in a land slide

As a ref, Wes McCauley is a JAG. He's average at making and missing calls. He just has a great personality and interacts well with players, so no surprise the players like him. I just think that, personality completely aside, McCauley is wildly overrated as a game official.

 

[Aussie Bruin]

Not sure what this means, but I think you're too hard on Price. He has proven himself "when it really counts" enough that Canada made him their #1 goalie several times.
Yes his stats have dropped off, but the fact that his NHL team has been so poorly managed the last several years doesn't mean he is not still respected by the players throughout the league.

By 'deep end' I mean the last 2 rounds of the playoffs. I admit I hadn't considered his international play and for sure his record with Canada is excellent. I also don't think he's even slightly responsible for the Habs' shortcomings and failure to reach the finals whilst he's been with them. He's a great goalie, but since the question revolves around the guy you want in net for the absolute clutch finals game, I'd want to be selecting a player with some proof of his record in that scenario. Price, largely through no fault of his own, doesn't quite have it. He'd still be in my top 5 for my answer, but not the top 3.

As an aside, it's been queried whether most polled players simply selected teammates out of loyalty. Most polls of this sort ban players from doing so to make the findings more objective. If the Athletic didn't in this case, then the whole exercise is largely worthless aside from the questions about game management matters.

 

[Jean_Jacket41]

Price voted best goalie for a game 7...

What an overrated and overpaid loser.

 

[Aeroforce]

McDavid is a no-brainer for best player. It's so obvious next year they should rephrase the question, "Best player after McDavid."

The poll was likely done weeks ago. If done today it would be a dogfight between Corey Perry and Tkachuk for dirtiest player. Kassian said he received numerous texts from opposing players agreeing with his handling of Tkachuk, and I believe him.

I'm not that disturbed by the over the glass penalty, but I suppose they could make it like icing - tired players can't change.

I also found it interesting the overwhelming majority don't follow advanced stats. If they did, I imagine some would fire pointless shot attempts just to improve their metrics.

Price is technically very sound on an average team. It doesn't surprise me NHL shooters have such high respect for him.