Top 10 in Scoring & Selke Voting

[silkyjohnson50]

Mitch Marner also earned a spot on the list - finishing 4th in scoring and 10th in Selke voting. Maybe I'm underrating his two-way play, but I didn't think he was a particularly good two-way player. I'd probably go as far as saying he's one of the worst defensive players on the list. Or have I underestimated him?

His possession numbers have been great the past two partial seasons (along with Matthews), but his goals against aren’t anything special. I’d be very curious to how Toronto fans who watch them nightly view Marner v Matthews defensively.

When I’ve watched Toronto it’s a mixed bag. At times Marner seems really good defensively, especially on the PK where his skill and quickness is disruptive. But then there’s time where I’ve watched where there’s no way I’d agree with him being a Selke vote getter. I’d love an objective Toronto fan’s take on it.

I’m not one who views the PK as the biggest factor in defensive play though. I’m more interested in those matchup forwards who can play 20 minutes a game against the opposing top line and consistently limit opportunities against. But like I said that Toronto line has had great possession numbers lately. Are they consistently matched up against opposing top lines?

 

[Jim MacDonald]

Wow....if it's cool to post as if not to sidetrack this thread, I was impressed seeing Ron Francis on here so many times, particularly on the Selke side. Are those Selke votes the years he was in the top 10 justified? Was Francis a guy on those Penguin teams that would take the big defensive zone faceoffs, had a good faceoff winning percentage and was solid on defense? If this is the case it would be cool to know/hear! If he had good D skills I wonder if this was in the toolbox in his Hartford Whalers days?!

 

[Dingo]

ive come back to this many times over the years. a favorite of mine. however, due to fringe voting for selke, i would rather see top ten in scoring and top 5 in selke (of course, i can and do compile this on my own!) thanks, regardless. it is a good achievement.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Wow....if it's cool to post as if not to sidetrack this thread, I was impressed seeing Ron Francis on here so many times, particularly on the Selke side. Are those Selke votes the years he was in the top 10 justified? Was Francis a guy on those Penguin teams that would take the big defensive zone faceoffs, had a good faceoff winning percentage and was solid on defense? If this is the case it would be cool to know/hear! If he had good D skills I wonder if this was in the toolbox in his Hartford Whalers days?!

Francis came in 5th one year with the Whalers in Selke voting.

In that era the good defensive forwards were pretty obvious.

When he played on a line with Mario and Jagr, he really had to play Jari Kurri-type D.

 

[Johnny Engine]

His possession numbers have been great the past two partial seasons (along with Matthews), but his goals against aren’t anything special. I’d be very curious to how Toronto fans who watch them nightly view Marner v Matthews defensively.

When I’ve watched Toronto it’s a mixed bag. At times Marner seems really good defensively, especially on the PK where his skill and quickness is disruptive. But then there’s time where I’ve watched where there’s no way I’d agree with him being a Selke vote getter. I’d love an objective Toronto fan’s take on it.

I’m not one who views the PK as the biggest factor in defensive play though. I’m more interested in those matchup forwards who can play 20 minutes a game against the opposing top line and consistently limit opportunities against. But like I said that Toronto line has had great possession numbers lately. Are they consistently matched up against opposing top lines?

I think your take on Marner basically lines up with reality. He's also one of those "visible effort moments" guys who will throw his body into a shot block or a diving pokecheck in such a way that it's the only thing you remember about the game.
When it comes to Marner and forward line matchups, there were two phases to this season. At the start, it was this convoluted setup where M+M started the game with Thornton, and then a very traditional checking line of Hyman, Mikheyev and either Kerfoot or Engvall took the toughest assignments, and then as the game went on M+M would pick up Thornton-less minutes here and there, mostly with Hyman, to get the TOI to a sane place. Eventually Thornton got injured and they started using a their real first line power-on-power, and they never returned to their early weird experiments once Thornton got healthy.
Either way I don't see how Marner gets into anybody's top-5 while actually considering half of the guys who do deserve it.

 

[seventieslord]

I think your take on Marner basically lines up with reality. He's also one of those "visible effort moments" guys who will throw his body into a shot block or a diving pokecheck in such a way that it's the only thing you remember about the game.
When it comes to Marner and forward line matchups, there were two phases to this season. At the start, it was this convoluted setup where M+M started the game with Thornton, and then a very traditional checking line of Hyman, Mikheyev and either Kerfoot or Engvall took the toughest assignments, and then as the game went on M+M would pick up Thornton-less minutes here and there, mostly with Hyman, to get the TOI to a sane place. Eventually Thornton got injured and they started using a their real first line power-on-power, and they never returned to their early weird experiments once Thornton got healthy.
Either way I don't see how Marner gets into anybody's top-5 while actually considering half of the guys who do deserve it.

Pretty much this. Marner is ok defensively, so is Matthews, and I have leafs fans friends who bought into some early media hype and began believing that one or both may finish high in selke voting. Didn't matter to them when I rattled off all the names of the usual guys you'd expect to finish highly. In the end he finished way higher than he deserved - mainly because as good as he may be defensively, not a single person covering the game should actually think he's one of the five best in the league.

 

[FinLurker]

ive come back to this many times over the years. a favorite of mine. however, due to fringe voting for selke, i would rather see top ten in scoring and top 5 in selke (of course, i can and do compile this on my own!) thanks, regardless. it is a good achievement.

Yes, I agree. I feel that top10 in points is harder to achieve than top10 in Selke voting and hence f.e. this year Stone and Barkov are out and Marner is in. Maybe something like x amount of overall votes or 3 first place votes could be better cut off. I feel that "popular" players get free passes because of name familiarity.

 

[Dingo]

Yes, I agree. I feel that top10 in points is harder to achieve than top10 in Selke voting and hence f.e. this year Stone and Barkov are out and Marner is in. Maybe something like x amount of overall votes or 3 first place votes could be better cut off. I feel that "popular" players get free passes because of name familiarity.

all it takes is a couple of people to vote Crosby and he is in. in reality, the top 3-5 get significant vote percentage and then it drops right off. compare that to 11th in points likely being at 98% or better of 10th.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

I’m not good with charts, so here’s just a quick rundown of the Top 10 Scoring/Top 5 Selke finishers. Kurri, Datsyuk, Francis, Fedorov, and Gilmour did it multiple times.

Kurri 9/2
Kurri 7/3
Kurri 2/4
Kurri 4/5
Datsyuk 4/1
Datsyuk 4/1
Datsyuk 10/3
Francis 5/1
Francis 4/2
Francis 5/4
Fedorov 2/1
Fedorov 9/1
Gilmour 7/1
Gilmour 4/2
Alfredsson 4/4
Barkov 10/5
Clarke 8/2
Crosby 5/4
Forsberg 1/4
Kopitar 7/1
Middleton 10/4
Sakic 2/2
St. Louis 1/4
Thornton 4/5
Trottier 8/2
Yzerman 10/1
Zetterberg 6/3

Limiting to Top 3 Selke finishes would separate it even further, because then you drop the names that were never truly Selke contenders.

I was surprised that Bergeron and Toews weren’t on here, but they both barely missed it appears. When you think of the elite 2-way players you’re clearly going to think of them before guys like Crosby, Thornton, St. Louis, etc who all made the list with Selke finishes in that 4-10 range.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

There was one addition to this list for 2022 - Auston Matthews. He finished T-6th in scoring, and 10th in Selke voting. If he goes on to win the Hart trophy (we know he's a finalist), he'll become only the 6th Hart winner on this list (and the first since Martin St. Louis in 2004).

Nobody else was close to making the list in 2022.

 

[The Panther]

How in the world did Oates '93 and Matthews '22 finish top-10 in Selke voting??

 

[seventieslord]

^^^ says guy who didn't watch Matthews this season

 

[NordiquesForeva]

How in the world did Oates '93 and Matthews '22 finish top-10 in Selke voting??

Oates was elite in the faceoff circle (as in, ~60% during his career) and that was probably good for some down-ballot Selke recognition in that particular year. He had also had a reputation as a high-scoring, but somewhat defensively conscious center at at time when some of his peers (Mario, Sakic, Yzerman, Turgeon) weren't exactly known for their commitment to defense.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

There was one addition to this list for 2023 - Elias Pettersson. He finished 10th in scoring, and 7th in Selke voting.

 

[BraveCanadian]

There was one addition to this list for 2023 - Elias Pettersson. He finished 10th in scoring, and 7th in Selke voting.

Was hoping Marner would make it this year, but he missed by 3 points. Thanks Keefe. Good job resting the 25 year old while burning out geezer Gio down the stretch.