Will McDavid be unanimous Hart winner?

[supersized]

I'm willing to bet absolutely not unless complete homer. Matthews isn't even best/more valuable player on his team.

Remember last year a Toronto writer gave Matthews a first place vote for the Selke it's safe to say they'll do the same this year.

 

[TheDoldrums]

People keep bringing up Toronto writers...they watched McDavid a lot this year.

Watch out for beat writers from other divisions in their own bubble, some who might think the North is a joke.

 

[Mickey Marner]

To be fair - you don't "need to follow more than one division" to know about McDavid. He's all the NHL is talking about lately, and his insane pace to end the season in the past 10 games is crazy. Maybe if he had been that hot at start, and ended a bit slower, some voters who mostly follow other divisions would look elsewhere. I don't see it happening.

He might not win unanimously - but if he doesn't it's because a voter or two purposefully don't vote for him to create controversary/publicity for themselves. Can't ever really predict that, but it's possible.

The screenshot of Rob Rossi on page one all but confirms that Crosby will get at least one first place vote. The intra-division play creates echo-chambers, where people only watch a fraction of what has happened, become too biased from it and form dogmatic opinions.

The 2013 season had some pretty eyebrow-raising voting results, this year will probably be even worse.

 

[bobholly39]

The screenshot of Rob Rossi on page one all but confirms that Crosby will get at least one first place vote. The intra-division play creates echo-chambers, where people only watch a fraction of what has happened, become too biased from it and form dogmatic opinions.

The 2013 season had some pretty eyebrow-raising voting results, this year will probably be even worse.

I missed that somehow.

He sounds like a moron. I'm a big Crosby fan - but McDavid has 40 more points. He may finish with 50 more points. That'd be like 1 more point a game.

Oh well - it's like I said, anyone not voting for McDavid is doing it purposefully to stir controversary and try to make himself the story.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

There’s always a few homer/contrarians out there who want to create controversy. So I doubt it will be unanimous. As others have said the Lindsay is a more meaningful award.

 

[snipes]

Matthews will get votes for 40 goals in 49 games. He'd get quite a few actually if the voters weren't so worried about being labeled homers.

However, Matthews has a much, much better supporting case. So McDavid truly deserves the Hart.

McDavid deserves the Hart because he’s far and away the best player in the world and is putting up the best season since Lemieux’s 1995-96 Penguins. He already has 35 more points than Matthews and would be up by 50+ if this were a normal 82 game season.

It has nothing to do with Matthews having a better supporting cast, McDavid will win because he’ll likely have more assists than anyone else in the league outside of his own teammate has points.

That’s lapping the competition in a Gretzky like fashion.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

Imagine if the Oilers would have missed the playoffs. Wonder who would have won it since you cannot be that valuable on a non playoff team, according to the media at least.

 

[Team Cozens]

I'm willing to bet absolutely not unless complete homer. Matthews isn't even best/more valuable player on his team.

Marner is so underrated for the success Matthews has. Marty Biron said it best on the NHL Network this week that Matthews is an elite 50 goal score but playing with Marner will make him a super elite 65 goal scorer. Just look at assists, Matthews has 25 and McDavid has 68. Crazy.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

The screenshot of Rob Rossi on page one all but confirms that Crosby will get at least one first place vote. The intra-division play creates echo-chambers, where people only watch a fraction of what has happened, become too biased from it and form dogmatic opinions.

The 2013 season had some pretty eyebrow-raising voting results, this year will probably be even worse.

Rob Rossi.

Living proof that people who get a vote on these awards do not, in fact, automatically know more about hockey than your average message board poster.

 

[93LEAFS]

Rob Rossi.

Living proof that people who get a vote on these awards do not, in fact, automatically know more about hockey than your average message board poster.

I’d say the average voter is more informed. But there are extreme outliers.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I’d say the average voter is more informed. But there are extreme outliers.

Are they, though? I don't think Rossi is that much of an outlier. Even guys like Friedman and Dreger come up with some questionable takes when you hear them breaking down their ballots and why they voted for certain players.

 

[CatchyTune]

No large group of people are going to unanimously agree on something.

 

[93LEAFS]

Are they, though? I don't think Rossi is that much of an outlier. Even guys like Friedman and Dreger come up with some questionable takes when you hear them breaking down their ballots and why they voted for certain players.

Let’s see the ballots. Obviously we will see differing value systems, but you see the same here with polls everyday.

Going against consensus isn’t always wrong either. We see it at the draft yearly. Sometimes it’s correct sometimes it’s wrong. But no one here is more informed than an NHL hockey ops department

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Let’s see the ballots. Obviously we will see differing value systems, but you see the same here with polls everyday.

Going against consensus isn’t always wrong either. We see it at the draft yearly. Sometimes it’s correct sometimes it’s wrong. But no one here is more informed than an NHL hockey ops department

That's completely different than the people who vote on awards. A lot of them are writers first and foremost who just so happen to cover hockey for their respective news outlet. Pittsburgh's media has a few who have repeatedly shown questionable grasp of hockey. Yet they vote on these awards.

My main point is sometimes people put these PWHA voters on some kind of tier of hockey knowledge above us regular folks, when in fact a lot of them are just casual fans who so happen to have a degree in journalism and got a job as a writer rather than an accountant or bus driver or plumber like the rest of us.

 

[93LEAFS]

That's completely different than the people who vote on awards. A lot of them are writers first and foremost who just so happen to cover hockey for their respective news outlet. Pittsburgh's media has a few who have repeatedly shown questionable grasp of hockey. Yet they vote on these awards.

My main point is sometimes people put these PWHA voters on some kind of tier of hockey knowledge above us regular folks, when in fact a lot of them are just casual fans who so happen to have a degree in journalism and got a job as a writer rather than an accountant or bus driver or plumber like the rest of us.

True, but it’s not like GM voted on awards don’t have similarly screwy votes like the Vezina.

 

[34]

No way. There are players in the NHL that are having better seasons.

 

[The Moose is Loose]

There will definitely be a handful of votes for somebody else, reminds me of when Matthews won the Calder and Winnipeg writers (3 of them?) voted for Laine and every other voter said Matthews.

Laine and Matthews were much closer their rookie seasons than anyone is to McDavid this year.

 

[The Moose is Loose]

No way. There are players in the NHL that are having better seasons.

And who would that be?

It's kind of insane I know exactly what you're going to say

 

[The Moose is Loose]

The screenshot of Rob Rossi on page one all but confirms that Crosby will get at least one first place vote. The intra-division play creates echo-chambers, where people only watch a fraction of what has happened, become too biased from it and form dogmatic opinions.

The 2013 season had some pretty eyebrow-raising voting results, this year will probably be even worse.

I don't think there will be any eyebrow raising voting results, there is a pretty clear cut frontrunner for each trophy.

Hart, Lindsay, Ross- McDavid
Rocket- Matthews
Norris- Fox (maybe Makar/Hedman)
Vezina- Vasy
Selke- Barkov

If it was a tighter race then the media idiots might botch it but it should be pretty straightforward at this point

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

No way. There are players in the NHL that are having better seasons.

I agree. Marner's carrying Toronto. Without him, who do they even have that's halfway decent?

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I recently posted this in another thread. Since 1980, there have been eight seasons where a player took 95%+ of the first-place votes for the Hart trophy:

Season	Player	Max	1st place	Percentage	Notes
1982	Gretzky	63	63	100.0%	Only unanimous Hart in NHL history
1993	Lemieux	50	49	98.0%	1x 2nd place vote
1992	Messier	69	67	97.1%	2x 2nd place votes
1984	Gretzky	62	60	96.8%	2x 2nd place votes
2012	Malkin	149	144	96.6%	4x 2nd place votes, 1x third place vote
2019	Kucherov	171	164	95.9%	3x 2nd place votes, 2x third place votes, 2x fourth place votes
2008	Ovechkin	134	128	95.5%	4x 2nd place votes, 1x third place votes, missing from one ballot
1985	Gretzky	63	60	95.2%	1x 2nd place vote, missing from two ballots

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I don't think McDavid wins unanimously. It's only happened once in all of NHL history (going back to the 1920's). And there were far fewer voters in the 20th century - you're more likely to get a contrarian or shameless homer in a pool of around 150 voters, as opposed to a pool of around 60 voters.

Still, I expect McDavid will end up in the top five on the list, making it the most decisive Hart trophy of the 21st century.

 

[wetcoast]

Are they, though? I don't think Rossi is that much of an outlier. Even guys like Friedman and Dreger come up with some questionable takes when you hear them breaking down their ballots and why they voted for certain players.

At least Rossi backs up his claim.

The Hart and most valuable player tag leaves it a bit open to interpretation and I think at least 3 votes goes elsewhere.

 

[Hisch13r]

No but if there's any season that should it's probably this one

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

At least Rossi backs up his claim.

The Hart and most valuable player tag leaves it a bit open to interpretation and I think at least 3 votes goes elsewhere.

Every voter who makes questionable votes "backs up" their reasons. But that doesn't mean they present very strong or valid reasons.

 

[Hockeyholic]

No it won't be unanimous. Some reporters (Cough Rossi) will pick Crosby. Some (Cough Woody Paige) will pick MacKinnon.

In the end, it's really irrelevant.

To me Derek Jeter was a better player than Rivera. It doesn't matter to me that Mo was unanimous while Jeter wasn't.

First is first.