Why is the Lindsay seen as less prestigious?

[ES]

Yes but that is my point. If you're an Islander you play McDavid twice but Crosby six times or something. Natural that bias might happen. You watch tapes on Crosby three times as often too.

Also how much it depends what player X does against your team. The only team McDavid has 0 points this year is Sabres. If players base it a lot towards the games against your own team, there might not be much votes for McDavid from Sabres players. And same applies to other star players from other teams.

 

[Zuluss]

Yes but that is my point. If you're an Islander you play McDavid twice but Crosby six times or something. Natural that bias might happen. You watch tapes on Crosby three times as often too.

Those kind of things will balance out, because players in the West will be in the opposite situation.
Anyone (journalists, coaches, GMs) will be more informed about their division/conference. But since divisions and conferences are all of the same size, these biases will average out.
The big question is how much info players have on other players beyond what they see on the ice, and whether this info is stale. If they watch 5 minutes of tapes from 2010 featuring Ovechkin before playing against him, then they are ill-informed. If the coaching staff educates them in detail on how Ovechkin is different this season compared to the previous ones, then they might have a better idea than media writers on how stars are doing.

 

[Zuluss]

Also how much it depends what player X does against your team. The only team McDavid has 0 points this year is Sabres. If players base it a lot towards the games against your own team, there might not be much votes for McDavid from Sabres players. And same applies to other star players from other teams.

You can say the same thing about journalists covering their home team.
The downward-biased votes from Buffalo will be counterbalanced by the upward-biased votes from whatever team McDavid ripped apart this season.

 

[StoneHands]

Players are more likely to vote based on a players reputation rather than who actually had the best season. How do you expect a player to actually watch other players when they're playing their own games at the exact same time as most other teams in the NHL? They can vote based on who they play against but they may only see some guys once or twice a year.