Why was there no official award for the best goalscorer before '99 and the Richard Trophy?

[Iceman]

Maurice Richard's career should've given birth to the Rocket Richard Trophy a lot earlier than it did, I agree.

 

[The Panther]

...hockey has too many trophies already. If we had a chance to do it all over again, I would probably cut out half of them. Hart, Norris, Vezina, Selke, Conn Smythe, Calder and Jack Adams are the only ones that seem necessary.

Man, I agree there are too many trophies. I personally would get rid of the Selke, as I have no idea what you're supposed to do to win it (and neither do NHL GMs or hockey writers), and I also don't know how media-people are supposed to know who is the doing the best job as coach.

But anyway, I think the NHL should more formally divide into two 'halves' (not Leagues) and do the award like MLB, with separate MVPs and such for each half. There are just too many teams now and too many players. Nobody who lives in Boston really has time to watch all the Anaheim, L.A., San Jose, etc. games and truly know what's going on there.

I'm all for traditions and keeping things the way they were, but the more I learned about the men most of these awards are named after, the more I support re-naming them! Basically all those guys were dicks.

 

[Captain Bowie]

Man, I agree there are too many trophies. I personally would get rid of the Selke, as I have no idea what you're supposed to do to win it (and neither do NHL GMs or hockey writers), and I also don't know how media-people are supposed to know who is the doing the best job as coach.

But anyway, I think the NHL should more formally divide into two 'halves' (not Leagues) and do the award like MLB, with separate MVPs and such for each half. There are just too many teams now and too many players. Nobody who lives in Boston really has time to watch all the Anaheim, L.A., San Jose, etc. games and truly know what's going on there.

I'm all for traditions and keeping things the way they were, but the more I learned about the men most of these awards are named after, the more I support re-naming them! Basically all those guys were dicks.

I think that's a terrible idea (2 MVP's). The hockey is the same in both conferences, unlike in baseball. I think it's dumb in baseball too, there should be one MVP for the whole league. They are the only league that does this.

There is enough intra-conference play, there is no reason for there to be 2 seperate trophies. You even agreed that there are too many already, but want to add another one? 2 Art Ross Trophies too?

 

[24 others]

It's a puzzling question indeed. Team game or not, even small kids on the pond count who scored how many goals. You would expect a goalscorer's trophy to be introduced as the first one, far ahead of constructions such as Selke or Lady Byng.