1999-2000 Pronger, last Dman to win the HART- Can Quinn Hughes end the Dman Hart drought this year

[Bizzare]

Have you seen the Avs forward core after the top line?

Last year as well? This isn’t a small sample size with Makar.

Quality of teammates had some Avs fans saying they’d take Girard over Hughes a couple years ago. Funny how the tables have apparently turned.

 

[Rowlet]

Last year as well? This isn’t a small sample size with Makar.

Quality of teammates had some Avs fans saying they’d take Girard over Hughes a couple years ago. Funny how the tables have apparently turned.

Also that Hughes was only an offensive threat while Makar was an all around stud.

Looks like it was projection the whole time.

 

[crowfish]

Vancouver is a lottery team without Hughes. His impact is the definition of the Hart trophy. If he maintains this level of play the whole year he should win the Hart.

 

[CanadienShark]

His season doesn't look Hart worthy thus far.

 

[eojsmada]

Probably not. The threshold for Hart Trophy d-men is super high. And points aren't enough. If Karlsson/Josi/Makar haven't done it, it will be pretty impossible (barring a Pierre LeBrun led media campaign) to get it done.

 

[Szechwan]

His underlying numbers are just bonkers, and the splits of Vancouver's performance with him on and off the ice should absolutely have him getting votes. You simply don't see players tilt the ice like that very often.

Will he win? No, it's extremely hard for a Dman to win that award. But on the basis of Most Valuable to their team, I think he's top 3.

 

[Rowlet]

I think people are forgetting what the Hart is for. Even if Makar is better, he still has the reigning Hart trophy winner on his team, that's a tough sell for voters.

 

[dmac7719]

Last year as well? This isn’t a small sample size with Makar.

Quality of teammates had some Avs fans saying they’d take Girard over Hughes a couple years ago. Funny how the tables have apparently turned.

If you are going to fling around something like this, I would expect you to have some evidence to back it up

 

[benfranklin]

No. While his underlying numbers are there, the pure offense isnt. Makar is on pace to smash the best offensive season weve seen in 40 years, on pace for 132 points (4th best of all time behind Orr (2x) and Coffey, had a 13 game point streak to start the season and he/MacKinnon are carrying an insanely injured Avs team. His +/- is skewed because of awful goaltending and is steadily on the rise back to positive.

I am one who will finally admit Hughes has turned into a complete defenseman after last season, but this is not the season to challenge Makar for anything defensively with the numbers he is putting up.

Assuming Makar's pace falls off and then maybe you can steal the Norris from him, but still the Hart is MacKinnon's to lose right now. Once any of Drouin, Nichushkin, and Landeskog come back the Avs numbers will only rise.

More than half of his points were scored on the powerplay. He doesn't generate offense at ES without MacKinnon.

As he pots a huge shorthanded goal the next night to take down an extremely hot Canes team. Makar plays all positions and doesnt get only sheltered O zone starts like Hughes does with either of Pettersson/Miller. Makar gets tossed out there to start in the D zone with the 4th line.

 

[Toby91ca]

I think people are forgetting what the Hart is for. Even if Makar is better, he still has the reigning Hart trophy winner on his team, that's a tough sell for voters.

Yeah, but voters will vote for various reasons. Also, this isn't a vote between Hughes and Makar. Do I think a Dman has a shot at getting the Hart this year? Not a chance....not based on the first 1/5th of the season or wherever we're at anyway

 

[Voight]

It won't happen unless all the top forwards decide to stop scoring or get hurt.

People forget, Pronger won the Hart with one of the smallest margins in history. Had Jagr played even just 10 more games, it wouldn't have been close.

 

[AvroArrow]

Can we stop using Jfresh charts as some sort of objective way to determine how good someone is ? The guys models are horrible, I feel like it's Kyle Dubas' burner or something.

 

[Rowlet]

If you are going to fling around something like this, I would expect you to have some evidence to back it up

Cale Makar without Nathan MacKinnon on the ice 2023-2024:

The Avalanche controlled play better when Makar was off the ice than when he was on it last year. He was statistically a net negative at 5v5. MacKinnon did better without Makar on the ice by about 3-5% in every statistical category.

 

[bobholly39]

Hughes was in better hart position a year ago than he is today.

In a vacuum - are either Makar or Hughes good enough to win a hart? I think so, maybe. But it depends on competition. They ain't going to do it in a season where peak Kucherov/Mack/McDavid are going off.

 

[Rowlet]

No. While his underlying numbers are there, the pure offense isnt. Makar is on pace to smash the best offensive season weve seen in 40 years, on pace for 132 points (4th best of all time behind Orr (2x) and Coffey, had a 13 game point streak to start the season and he/MacKinnon are carrying an insanely injured Avs team. His +/- is skewed because of awful goaltending and is steadily on the rise back to positive.

I am one who will finally admit Hughes has turned into a complete defenseman after last season, but this is not the season to challenge Makar for anything defensively with the numbers he is putting up.

Assuming Makar's pace falls off and then maybe you can steal the Norris from him, but still the Hart is MacKinnon's to lose right now. Once any of Drouin, Nichushkin, and Landeskog come back the Avs numbers will only rise.

As he pots a huge shorthanded goal the next night to take down an extremely hot Canes team. Makar plays all positions and doesnt get only sheltered O zone starts like Hughes does with either of Pettersson/Miller. Makar gets tossed out there to start in the D zone with the 4th line.

This was all used as arguments against Hughes' for a Hart/Norris last season, that he was offence only while Makar was better defensively (he wasn't) so it's extremely funny that Hughes 120+pt pace is proof that he's Karlsson while Makar's is proof that he's generational, despite Hughes actually being much better defensively over the past 2 seasons. Wild that his lack of offense is now a knock against him.

But again, Makar doesn't really matter in this because Hughes wouldn't be competing with him, he'd be competing with MacKinnon.

Per our old pal NatStat at 5v5:

Hughes:

CF: 63.82%
FF: 62.87%
SF: 63.1%
GF: 69.57%
xG: 65.85%
SCF: 66.38%
HDCF: 64%
HDGF: 76.92%
OZ1F: 63.16%

MacKinnon:

CF: 61.73%
FF: 62.32%
SF: 63.49%
GF: 63.79%
xG: 65.53%
SCF: 68.13%
HDCF: 68.57%
HDGF: 55%
OZF: 72.94%

I went and highlighted the better number, looks like Hughes and MacKinnon are actually pretty close statistically when you consider the raw numbers, but Natural Stat Trick doesn't track Relative numbers, so here they are from HockeyReference:

Hughes:

CFRel: +20.1%
FFRel: +21%

MacKinnon:
CFRel: +2%
FFRel: +4%

Interesting that despite all of the Avalanche's struggles, MacKinnon's possession metrics aren't that much better relative to the rest of the team, you'd think that with the Avs being bad and seriously injured, that wouldn't be the case, but he's still having a hard time. Hughes on the other hand is probably the best possession player in the league.

and as per PuckIQ, Hughes is doing better against a higher quality of competition than MacKinnon is, relative to his team, a stat that should only help MacKinnon because of how badly injured their forwards are:

 

[Rowlet]

Yeah, but voters will vote for various reasons. Also, this isn't a vote between Hughes and Makar. Do I think a Dman has a shot at getting the Hart this year? Not a chance....not based on the first 1/5th of the season or wherever we're at anyway

I agree, that's why I think the Hughes vs Makar argument here is stupid, it should be Hughes vs Kucherov, MacKinnon, and Kaprizov.

 

[Killswitch]

We still pretending Karlsson or any of these high offense dmen are good at defense? If they were they'd be out there with other offensive dmen all the time

 

[Rowlet]

We still pretending Karlsson or any of these high offense dmen are good at defense? If they were they'd be out there with other offensive dmen all the time

Hughes has some of the best underlying defensive numbers in the game. People above you were saying he can't win because he isn't offensive enough.

 

[Bank Shot]

Also that Hughes was only an offensive threat while Makar was an all around stud.

Looks like it was projection the whole time.

Last year in the playoffs against the Oilers, Hughes was playing second pairing minutes against Mcdavid. Tyler Myers had almost twice the icetime.

Compare that to Makar vs Mcdavid in 2022. Makar played twice as many minutes against McDavid than the next pairing did.

If you have an all around stud, why isn't he going head to head against the best as much as possible?

Context in stats is important.

 

[Killswitch]

Hughes has some of the best underlying defensive numbers in the game. People above you were saying he can't win because he isn't offensive enough.

Underlying what now? You can watch him play. The internet is a thing. He's an elite offensive dman. He's average at best defensively unless you apply the Sens fans idea of a good offense yada yada. We know better though. Don't we. It's not a surprise to see people say it about their own teams players. I get that. Be reasonable about the trade off. He can't be in two places at once, which is why they always have a defensive dman playing actual defense. To cover up these guys being out of position all the time. Part of the game and I'm not slagging him. Just those who bs about the reality

 

[Rowlet]

Last year in the playoffs against the Oilers, Hughes was playing second pairing minutes against Mcdavid. Tyler Myers had almost twice the icetime.

Compare that to Makar vs Mcdavid in 2022. Makar played twice as many minutes against McDavid than the next pairing did.

If you have an all around stud, why isn't he going head to head against the best as much as possible?

Makar in 2022 was better defensively than Hughes was last year, no argument from me, but Makar has gotten statistically worse defensively every year since then. We're talking this year, not 3 years ago.

Underlying what now? You can watch him play. The internet is a thing. He's an elite offensive dman. He's average at best defensively unless you apply the Sens fans idea of a good offense yada yada. We know better though. Don't we. It's not a surprise to see people say it about their own teams players. I get that. Be reasonable about the trade off. He can't be in two places at once, which is why they always have a defensive dman playing actual defense. To cover up these guys being out of position all the time. Part of the game and I'm not slagging him. Just those who bs about the reality

If you don't know how to read stats, that's fine, I can teach you.

Do you think Filip Hronek is a defensive stud? I can understand the argument with Toews babysitting Makar, I disagree with it, but Hronek is also an offensive defenseman.

When the Canucks acquired Hronek, the overwhelming sentiment was that he would carry his own pairing and that two offensive puck movers don't work well together, but the Canucks put them together anyways and made one of the most effective pairings in the NHL for the last year.

 

[Romang67]

Underlying what now? You can watch him play. The internet is a thing. He's an elite offensive dman. He's average at best defensively unless you apply the Sens fans idea of a good offense yada yada. We know better though. Don't we. It's not a surprise to see people say it about their own teams players. I get that. Be reasonable about the trade off. He can't be in two places at once, which is why they always have a defensive dman playing actual defense. To cover up these guys being out of position all the time. Part of the game and I'm not slagging him. Just those who bs about the reality

If only we equipped the players with some kind of footwear that would help them move from the offensive zone to the defensive zone, despite the slippery surface.

 

[Mac Attack]

Hughes seems to make it work when you only consider the 3rd and 4th line.

65% CF, 62% FF, 71% xGF when neither Miller or Pettersson are on the ice.

Makar is 39% CF, 37% FF, and 37% xGF without MacKinnon.

I get it in general. (Also not plugging Makar or bashing Hughes with this post.) not a great stat to use at the moment as Colorado has the worst group of forwards in the league currently behind the MacKinnon line until guys come back from injury. They played a Dman who was normally a healthy scratch, and their 7th round pick in this year's draft on their lineup together recently.

 

[dmac7719]

Cale Makar without Nathan MacKinnon on the ice 2023-2024:

View attachment 929190

The Avalanche controlled play better when Makar was off the ice than when he was on it last year. He was statistically a net negative at 5v5. MacKinnon did better without Makar on the ice by about 3-5% in every statistical category.

Was talking about the second part of the message, not the first part

 

[Breakers]

No shot