Hart Trophy... simply by star points? If so, a suggested alteration...

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

Hart Trophy... simply by star points? If so, a suggested alteration...

VanIslander · Guru

Florida Panthers wrote:

I was looking at the article on Sanford and noticed the comment about the Hart Trophy and how Sanford's great play would likely affect Lundqvist's chances at the hart as he currently sat 7th in Star Points. Is the Hart Trophy just automatically given to the player with the most star points?

Stay tuned. I'm talking to Eric about that.

BryceBruins · BRHL2 Co-Commish

The Hart will be voted on.....Star points are nice and dandy but they arent always accurate. No worries about that.

But if anyone pulls a Rory Fitzpatrick voting on the Hart I'll fine their ass bigtime LOL

on that now www.voteforrory.com LOL

CBJackets · Guru

I think most major awards that can be voted on should be done by a vote. I know even if I had something against a particular GM it wouldn't stop me from voting for the player that deserves the award. It's pretty hard to argue with a league wide vote and I think that would yield the most fair, least complainable result.

-- Edited by CBJackets at 01:21, 2006-12-06

Sabres · Guru

BryceBruins wrote:

The Hart will be voted on.....Star points are nice and dandy but they arent always accurate. No worries about that.

But if anyone pulls a Rory Fitzpatrick voting on the Hart I'll fine their ass bigtime LOL

on that now www.voteforrory.com LOL

You're telling me...Crosby had the game tieing goal, and winning goal in OT...and didnt even get 3rd star...As far as I'm concerned, the stars mean nothing.

VanIslander · Guru

Sabres wrote:

You're telling me...Crosby had the game tieing goal, and winning goal in OT...and didnt even get 3rd star...As far as I'm concerned, the stars mean nothing.

Crosby was indeed a game star in that game (further, he did not score the tying goal, Halpern did in the last minute, plus set up an earlier goal, and led all skaters in shots taken, and hence was first star, Bouwmeester was dominant and assisted on three of the goals, so was second star, Crosby was third star).

And the stars are significant.

Believe me, I have been writing the cover page stories and analyzing the games up the yazoo and in 90% of the cases they are bang on. Only in a fraction of cases do they seem off. So let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a skater isn't in the Top10 (or Top15 or Top20) for star points at season's end, then he shouldn't be in consideration. And just like the NHL, the chances of a player on a nonplayoff bottom dwelling team of taking home the Hart trophy is next to nil (looking at NHL history).

-- Edited by VanIslander at 06:02, 2006-12-06

-- Edited by VanIslander at 06:04, 2006-12-06

VanIslander · Guru

Florida Panthers wrote:

I was looking at the article on Sanford and noticed the comment about the Hart Trophy and how Sanford's great play would likely affect Lundqvist's chances at the hart as he currently sat 7th in Star Points. Is the Hart Trophy just automatically given to the player with the most star points?

That's not the upshot of what I wrote.

Sanford is playing BETTER than Lundqvist in every way and so the backup is taking the spotlight off of the starter. The star points is one indicator of how valuable a player is to a team's wins, and it reflects the fact that Sanford has an incredible 24 star points in 12 games. Would Lundqvist have starred in those games? I dunno about how many, given Sanford's better stats. And would Florida have won just as many games? Several of them for sure, but Sanford's success starring in so many games, makes one wonder of the worth of Lundqvist to Florida success!! whereas, if Sanford just played his six-game minimum and struggled and the team struggled then, and Lundqvist started and starred in all those other games and also got the lion share of Sanford's 24 star points (3 pts for 1st star, 2 pts for 2nd star, 1 pt for 3rd star) then Lundqvist would be leading the league in star points, have the best win-loss record, etcetera... and look like he and he alone is the reason why the Panthers is winning. As it stands, it looks like it doesn't matter who is in net, the team wins, and in fact wins more often with Sanford between the pipes.

One look and you can see Oilers Biron is Top-3 in star points and that's because he has stood on his head and robbed many games against higher-rated teams, making Edmonton much better than one would expect. But teammate Kovalchuk has been almost as good, as reflected in his decent star points total. Vokoun leads all in star points and took Tampa Bay up to near the top of the league, and now that he has been traded to Columbus, a below .500 team, that he might help rise, but on a team loaded with new players it'll be hard to see what role he plays unless he STARS in many games down the stretch.

So star points are relevant but of course not everything!

One excellent Hart candidate at this point (but still so sooooo early!!) is Ryan Miller, who is Top-3 in star points and that reflects his role in backstopping Ottawa to an 11-game unbeaten streak now and two points away from the league lead. If Ottawa wins the division, the conference and especially the President's trophy, with the second best player on the team being Steve Bernier, then it'll most likely be because Miller keeps doing what he has been doing: winning games (of course, Ottawa's powerplay has been awesome, but their shots-for and goals-for are BELOW average, and haven't a scorer anywhere near the Top-30 in the league, except they recently picked up Hecht, ranked 22nd with 10 goals and 32 pts. But his impact has yet to be felt).

-- Edited by VanIslander at 06:37, 2006-12-06