2005-06 Hart Trophy Revisit
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JackSlater
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I've always considered it very close between Thornton and Jagr. Offensively very similar, and while some people harp about goals when a playmaker runs the offence like Thornton did that year I won't be convinced to differentiate. Some people will nonsensically hold it against Thornton that he was traded. Thornton was better than Jagr defensively, but Jagr was still such a possession monster that it probably didn't matter all that much. Thornton was dominant in possession too at that time though.
I voted for Thornton but would not fault someone for going with Jagr.
I voted for Thornton but would not fault someone for going with Jagr.
The Panther
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Jagr should have won.
Not only was he the better and more impactful player, his team hugely improved in the standings, while Thornton's declined.
Not only was he the better and more impactful player, his team hugely improved in the standings, while Thornton's declined.
Hockey Outsider
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- Jan 16, 2005
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At the time I would have voted Jagr first, Thornton second, and Lidstrom third. Then Alfredsson and Ovechkin would round out the top five (but I don't remember, at the time, who I would have ranked higher).
I'll spend most of the post talking about the top two forwards, but before doing that, I'll mention that Lidstrom had a spectacular season. This was the "changing of the guards" season for Detroit - Yzerman and Chelios were on their last legs, Hasek and Hull were gone, while Datsyuk and Zetterberg were just starting to emerge as stars. Detroit still easily won the Presidents Trophy, and Lidstrom was the glue that held them together. It's easy to choose 2006 as Lidstrom's best season because of the high point total, but that's not what I found most impressive - it was his importance to the changing franchise. The fact that he only finished 7th in Hart voting is a good example of how the voters tend not to value defensemen.
At the time, I fairly confident that I would have voted for Jagr over Thornton. The case for Thornton reeked of 1989 (when the voters picked Gretzky for the Hart, because it was a great storyline, even though Lemieux was almost certainly better). I know that we saw Thornton's impact because he was traded mid-season, but (at the time) I didn't think he actually impacted the Sharks any more than Jagr did the Rangers (just that it was easier to see Thornton's impact because of the trade).
Both forwards had essentially the same point total. I'll generally take the well-balanced scorer over the specialist (which favours Jagr - who was 2nd in goals and T-3rd in assists).
I wasn't overly impressed by Thornton propelling Cheechoo to the Rocket Richard trophy. I know Cheechoo has become something of a joke on HFBoards, but he had scored 28 goals during the previous season (as a sophomore player). Given the leaguewide rise in scoring, it wouldn't have been unexpected for him to get 35 or even 40 goals in 2006. Thornton helped him get to 56, which is obviously impressive, but Cheechoo wasn't nearly as weak goal-scorer as some people remember. Besides, Jagr really boosted the output of Nylander, Straka and Rucinsky. I'm not sure if all of the production being funneled into one player's goals total (Cheechoo) is more impressive than what Jagr did.
Now, with hindsight, I favour Thornton. At the time, I gave Jagr a lot of credit for the Rangers' resurgence (they jumped 31 points in the standings). He was important, of course, but I completely underestimated the impact of Lundqvist. (In 2006, nobody thought that he was a future Hall of Famer). In 2004, the Rangers were 17th in GF and 27th in GA, and finished with 69 points. In 2006, the Rangers were 11th in GF and 4th in GA, and finished with 100 points. Clearly they improved both their offense and defense, but it was their defense that improved more. I'd wager that was due more to Lundqvist than Jagr. What seals it for me is the Rangers remained consistent even as Jagr's play dropped off over the next few years (he went from 123 points, to 96, to 71, to out of the NHL entirely). Despite that, the Rangers remained consistently good (and often excellent) in terms of goals against, and they barely moved in the standings despite Jagr going from Art Ross contender, to average first line forward, to the KHL.
Obviously, nobody could have known this at the time. But I think Lundqvist's impact on the 2006 Rangers was underestimated (which is understandable - he was a rookie goalie drafted 205th overall). Jagr still had a great season, of course, but I think I attributed too much of the team's improvement to him, and not nearly enough to the goalie. In Thornton's case, the improvement was enormous, and he was very clearly the primary reason for the Sharks' resurgence. Therefore, with hindsight, I think the voters made the right call.
I'll spend most of the post talking about the top two forwards, but before doing that, I'll mention that Lidstrom had a spectacular season. This was the "changing of the guards" season for Detroit - Yzerman and Chelios were on their last legs, Hasek and Hull were gone, while Datsyuk and Zetterberg were just starting to emerge as stars. Detroit still easily won the Presidents Trophy, and Lidstrom was the glue that held them together. It's easy to choose 2006 as Lidstrom's best season because of the high point total, but that's not what I found most impressive - it was his importance to the changing franchise. The fact that he only finished 7th in Hart voting is a good example of how the voters tend not to value defensemen.
At the time, I fairly confident that I would have voted for Jagr over Thornton. The case for Thornton reeked of 1989 (when the voters picked Gretzky for the Hart, because it was a great storyline, even though Lemieux was almost certainly better). I know that we saw Thornton's impact because he was traded mid-season, but (at the time) I didn't think he actually impacted the Sharks any more than Jagr did the Rangers (just that it was easier to see Thornton's impact because of the trade).
Both forwards had essentially the same point total. I'll generally take the well-balanced scorer over the specialist (which favours Jagr - who was 2nd in goals and T-3rd in assists).
I wasn't overly impressed by Thornton propelling Cheechoo to the Rocket Richard trophy. I know Cheechoo has become something of a joke on HFBoards, but he had scored 28 goals during the previous season (as a sophomore player). Given the leaguewide rise in scoring, it wouldn't have been unexpected for him to get 35 or even 40 goals in 2006. Thornton helped him get to 56, which is obviously impressive, but Cheechoo wasn't nearly as weak goal-scorer as some people remember. Besides, Jagr really boosted the output of Nylander, Straka and Rucinsky. I'm not sure if all of the production being funneled into one player's goals total (Cheechoo) is more impressive than what Jagr did.
Now, with hindsight, I favour Thornton. At the time, I gave Jagr a lot of credit for the Rangers' resurgence (they jumped 31 points in the standings). He was important, of course, but I completely underestimated the impact of Lundqvist. (In 2006, nobody thought that he was a future Hall of Famer). In 2004, the Rangers were 17th in GF and 27th in GA, and finished with 69 points. In 2006, the Rangers were 11th in GF and 4th in GA, and finished with 100 points. Clearly they improved both their offense and defense, but it was their defense that improved more. I'd wager that was due more to Lundqvist than Jagr. What seals it for me is the Rangers remained consistent even as Jagr's play dropped off over the next few years (he went from 123 points, to 96, to 71, to out of the NHL entirely). Despite that, the Rangers remained consistently good (and often excellent) in terms of goals against, and they barely moved in the standings despite Jagr going from Art Ross contender, to average first line forward, to the KHL.
Obviously, nobody could have known this at the time. But I think Lundqvist's impact on the 2006 Rangers was underestimated (which is understandable - he was a rookie goalie drafted 205th overall). Jagr still had a great season, of course, but I think I attributed too much of the team's improvement to him, and not nearly enough to the goalie. In Thornton's case, the improvement was enormous, and he was very clearly the primary reason for the Sharks' resurgence. Therefore, with hindsight, I think the voters made the right call.
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MadLuke
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The lock-out season and nhl rules change make this angle a bit less impactful (I would imagine for the voters but also in reality)
The rangers are such a different team, they were the Messier-Holick-Kovalev-Lindros-Nedved salary monster.
When Lundqvist (and other that maybe could have been in the conversation) was in net they were incredibly better than in 2004, less so otherwise.
And maybe more importantly, before the trade the Sharks were a .417 team scoring only 2.58 goals a game.
After, while loosing 3 significant pieces they jumped to a .681 and 3.50 goals a game, which I am not sure how to compare to pre-shutout ties 2004 .634 Sharks, but I doubt it is significantly worst, they were tie for third in the nhl with Thornton, like they were in 2004, considering Nabokov-Toskala relative season.... 2004 was maybe a bit on the lucky side PDO wise (.923% while shooting 9.5%, in a .908%-9.2 nhl).
Both were perfectly fine winner without one that should have won over the other imo. Thornton had the much better narrative with the Ross and the in season team turn around, an ok tie breaker.
- Feb 10, 2010
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I'd take Jagr over Thornton for the goal scoring.
I also think Ovechkin could be argued as a finalist (he was a Lindsay finalist). He was on a lottery team and just electric out there. First game in the NHL - 2 goals. First shift and he puts a guy into the boards so hard that it knocked out a stanchion.
Totally changed the franchise.
I also think Ovechkin could be argued as a finalist (he was a Lindsay finalist). He was on a lottery team and just electric out there. First game in the NHL - 2 goals. First shift and he puts a guy into the boards so hard that it knocked out a stanchion.
Totally changed the franchise.
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If the belief is that a player missing the playoffs is enough to keep him out of Hart voting because their value is irrelevant, I still maintain it doesn’t make sense to consider what Thornton did for both teams in his Hart case since what he did for the Bruins is irrelevant to the Sharks. A lot of people disagree but I will die on that hill. It was a weak narrative driven decision then and it still is now.
The Panther
Registered User
That's true.
Meh. That was for only 24 games and the Sharks were at the end of a bad losing streak.
The other factor in this is -- as I've complained about numerous times before with this topic -- Thornton played only 58 games with San Jose. How is that more valuable than Jagr playing 82?
MadLuke
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Yes, the rest of the sentence was important, the Thornton Sharks was not worst than the pre-lockout sharks (despite their hot vs mediocre goaltending situation)
This must be some Bruins value + Sharks value, because it is true that a big gap, even then Bruins were terrible pre (or post) trades, thus said trade being made....
MXD
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The Panther
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But if your season is divided into two teams, how is the player "most valuable to his team"?
vadim sharifijanov
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with sj, you have to look at nabokov’s season to really understand what happened. so nabby was in his fifth year and up to the lockout was generally regarded as a top third goalie in the league (at worst — in three of those years he finished top six in vezina voting). and then in 2006 he coughed up an absolute pile of a season.
something happened... it was as if kiprusoff’s success in 2004 broke his brain, or he had the olympics too much at the front of his mind, or the pressure of being in a contract year overwhelmed him, or he spent the lockout hanging out eating cheese fries and drinking beer for breakfast with tkachuk. but i think it was probably just a slow start compounded not long after by a shoulder injury, followed by a groin injury, and they hampered him all season — although tbf he was very good in the olympics.
so nabokov starts the season 3-2-1, plus a mop up in a game toskala got pulled in (toskala took the L) and the half game he got hurt in (a 1-1 game when nabby went down that toskala went on to lose 4-1). but despite the winning record, nabokov was expansion team-bad. 3.52 GAA, .862 SV%. among all goalies who had played a minute, he was 47th out of 61 in SV%. (but toskala was even worse: including the game nabby got hurt, the team was 3-4-1, 4.00 GAA.)
but i don’t think it was necessarily a case of the team sucking. so toskala goes on to lose the next game (a close one: 2-1), then in the next game, toskala gets hurt midway through the game and nolan schaefer spells him, coming in down 3-2 and going on to win it 5-4 in OT. and then schaefer goes on to start and win the next four games as well, before finally losing in his sixth NHL game (a respectable 3-1 loss, including an EN). if a guy who had never played in the NHL (and only ever played another 11 minutes, 20 seconds afterwards) could go 5-1-0, 1.94, .916, how bad could that team really be?
so then toskala comes back into the lineup, proceeds to give up five goals in 23 shots (lost of course), then nabokov also comes back and they let him play the entirety of the next eight games, in which he went 0-5-3, 3.19, .863.
then they trade for thornton.
so what everybody looks at is how the sharks were 8-12-4 before the trade and 36-15-7 after. and thornton didn’t do nothing, of course. in his first game, nabokov and schaefer share a shutout (nabokov gets hurt late in the third, schaefer plays his last NHL minutes). then toskala gets his first two wins of the season before nabokov comes back into the lineup. all in all, the sharks won their first six games with thornton (but then lost five of the following six). but what you really need to look at are the goalies’ respective records and stats after the thornton trade:
and to go even more granular, for whatever reason, coach ron wilson was really reluctant to play toskala. i mean, this is also a guy who had nolan schaefer sporting a 5-1 record and sub-2.00 GAA and he basically never played him again once his two goalies came off IR. between the thornton trade and march, the only real run of games toskala got was three straight before the olympic break and the one right after (4-0 record), likely only to mitigate against overworking nabokov, who was russia’s starter in the olympics. but then, after three straight losses (the last two by nabokov), toskala finally wins the net in early march and nabokov doesn’t get it back. from that game until the end of the regular season, san jose goes 16-4-2. nabokov plays five of those games, with a 2-3-0 record, 4.02, .852 (toskala's averaging stats are 2.14, .913). this is the big run where SJ went from eight pts out of a playoff spot to ending the season in the number five seed.
TL;DR: was it really thornton who saved SJ’s season, or was it that SJ was a good team but nabokov was destroying their season and when they finally turned the net to toskala they stopped losing?
something happened... it was as if kiprusoff’s success in 2004 broke his brain, or he had the olympics too much at the front of his mind, or the pressure of being in a contract year overwhelmed him, or he spent the lockout hanging out eating cheese fries and drinking beer for breakfast with tkachuk. but i think it was probably just a slow start compounded not long after by a shoulder injury, followed by a groin injury, and they hampered him all season — although tbf he was very good in the olympics.
so nabokov starts the season 3-2-1, plus a mop up in a game toskala got pulled in (toskala took the L) and the half game he got hurt in (a 1-1 game when nabby went down that toskala went on to lose 4-1). but despite the winning record, nabokov was expansion team-bad. 3.52 GAA, .862 SV%. among all goalies who had played a minute, he was 47th out of 61 in SV%. (but toskala was even worse: including the game nabby got hurt, the team was 3-4-1, 4.00 GAA.)
but i don’t think it was necessarily a case of the team sucking. so toskala goes on to lose the next game (a close one: 2-1), then in the next game, toskala gets hurt midway through the game and nolan schaefer spells him, coming in down 3-2 and going on to win it 5-4 in OT. and then schaefer goes on to start and win the next four games as well, before finally losing in his sixth NHL game (a respectable 3-1 loss, including an EN). if a guy who had never played in the NHL (and only ever played another 11 minutes, 20 seconds afterwards) could go 5-1-0, 1.94, .916, how bad could that team really be?
so then toskala comes back into the lineup, proceeds to give up five goals in 23 shots (lost of course), then nabokov also comes back and they let him play the entirety of the next eight games, in which he went 0-5-3, 3.19, .863.
then they trade for thornton.
so what everybody looks at is how the sharks were 8-12-4 before the trade and 36-15-7 after. and thornton didn’t do nothing, of course. in his first game, nabokov and schaefer share a shutout (nabokov gets hurt late in the third, schaefer plays his last NHL minutes). then toskala gets his first two wins of the season before nabokov comes back into the lineup. all in all, the sharks won their first six games with thornton (but then lost five of the following six). but what you really need to look at are the goalies’ respective records and stats after the thornton trade:
| record | GAA | SV% | SO | |
| nabokov | 13-12-3 | 2.97 | .895 | 1 |
| toskala | 23-3-4 | 2.29 | .911 | 2 |
and to go even more granular, for whatever reason, coach ron wilson was really reluctant to play toskala. i mean, this is also a guy who had nolan schaefer sporting a 5-1 record and sub-2.00 GAA and he basically never played him again once his two goalies came off IR. between the thornton trade and march, the only real run of games toskala got was three straight before the olympic break and the one right after (4-0 record), likely only to mitigate against overworking nabokov, who was russia’s starter in the olympics. but then, after three straight losses (the last two by nabokov), toskala finally wins the net in early march and nabokov doesn’t get it back. from that game until the end of the regular season, san jose goes 16-4-2. nabokov plays five of those games, with a 2-3-0 record, 4.02, .852 (toskala's averaging stats are 2.14, .913). this is the big run where SJ went from eight pts out of a playoff spot to ending the season in the number five seed.
TL;DR: was it really thornton who saved SJ’s season, or was it that SJ was a good team but nabokov was destroying their season and when they finally turned the net to toskala they stopped losing?
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vadim sharifijanov
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having said all this, i don’t really have a problem with thornton winning it. it was a close one, and as it always goes, the guy who has a bonkers stretch run and takes over the league lead is going to win the hart more often than not. theodore in 2002, forsberg in 2003, henrik in 2010, perry in 2011, ovechkin in 2013.
and while i think nabokov ceding the net to toskala saved SJ’s season, thornton did have a scorching stretch run where he had as many assists as anyone else had pts.
but i’d also have had no problem with jagr winning. both of their teams came out of the lockout completely different teams. the 2006 rangers bore absolutely no resemblance to the 2004 team (not counting jagr, who was a mid-season acquisition in ’04, the only returning players were rucinsky, tom poti, and kasparaitis). likewise, the sharks had majorly turned over: so much of the vets that defined the on-the-brink, pre-lockout sharks were gone and the team was turned over to the young guys: marleau, cheechoo, nils ekman, and a bunch of rookies (ehrhoff, carle, michalek, steve bernier). it makes zero sense to credit jagr with the rangers improving from 2004. what we should be lauding both jagr and thornton for is taking the reins as the top guy on teams that had very little (in new york’s case almost no) continuity and a lot of rookies and steer the ship to (almost identical) winning records.
push comes to shove, i favour jagr though. he just felt like the clear second second most dominant player in the world to me that year (behind forsberg, who was scoring almost two pts/game and had simon gagné on pace for 50 in 50 before injuring his groin at the end of november).
and while i think nabokov ceding the net to toskala saved SJ’s season, thornton did have a scorching stretch run where he had as many assists as anyone else had pts.
but i’d also have had no problem with jagr winning. both of their teams came out of the lockout completely different teams. the 2006 rangers bore absolutely no resemblance to the 2004 team (not counting jagr, who was a mid-season acquisition in ’04, the only returning players were rucinsky, tom poti, and kasparaitis). likewise, the sharks had majorly turned over: so much of the vets that defined the on-the-brink, pre-lockout sharks were gone and the team was turned over to the young guys: marleau, cheechoo, nils ekman, and a bunch of rookies (ehrhoff, carle, michalek, steve bernier). it makes zero sense to credit jagr with the rangers improving from 2004. what we should be lauding both jagr and thornton for is taking the reins as the top guy on teams that had very little (in new york’s case almost no) continuity and a lot of rookies and steer the ship to (almost identical) winning records.
push comes to shove, i favour jagr though. he just felt like the clear second second most dominant player in the world to me that year (behind forsberg, who was scoring almost two pts/game and had simon gagné on pace for 50 in 50 before injuring his groin at the end of november).
Nobody says it's singular team. It obviously takes overall season into account.
Honestly I voted Thornton precisely because of the trade. It's very hard to acclimate to a new team, especially in-season and especially when it's such a big blockbuster trade with so much hype and expectations around it. I think all of that makes what Joe Thornton did in San Jose even more impressive.
It's definitely a 1A/1B situation though, as I think Jagr would have been a worthy winner.
MXD
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The use of a "most valuable player to his teams" as a descriptor would've been extremely stupid, as that could bring interpretation issues as to whether a player needs to play for two teams to receive the award.
Felidae
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Just to play devils advocate a bit. Maybe we are underselling some of the defenseman and goalies here
Kipper with over 70+ GP sporting a .923 sv%. 3rd best in the league. No goalie with 70+ games came close to his numbers. (Closest is luongo with .914sv%)
Not to mention, his team was eh. Yeah, they were first in GA. But he was the backbone of the team that year. They were 28th in GF. That's abysmal, especially for a PO team.
Then ofc Lidstrom who leads all defenseman in scoring while being arguably the best at playing actual defense.
Kipper with over 70+ GP sporting a .923 sv%. 3rd best in the league. No goalie with 70+ games came close to his numbers. (Closest is luongo with .914sv%)
Not to mention, his team was eh. Yeah, they were first in GA. But he was the backbone of the team that year. They were 28th in GF. That's abysmal, especially for a PO team.
Then ofc Lidstrom who leads all defenseman in scoring while being arguably the best at playing actual defense.
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jigglysquishy
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Watching live I 100% thought it was Jagr. He had a massive rebound, pulled a poor team into a good playoff spot, and spent most of the season leading the league in points.
Are you planning on running multiple threads with other years, or for other "close call" trophies? Based on your OP I'm curious. I'd love that if so.
Funny thing about Jagr is this isn't even his closest call to me - I thought he deserved the Harts in 2000 and 1995 even more than this one
It's funny how with Jagr - he only has 1 hart, but changing very little to history he could so easily have had 5 or 6. Really shows how much competition and timing of competition can impact trophy counting.
JackSlater
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Thornton and Jagr are too far ahead. Dominating scoring, very strong possession players, teams were not bad but not loaded either. I do think that Kiprusoff had a very strong case in the general sense, where Calgary had him, Iginla in an off year, a good coach, and that's about it. Great workhorse performance, the type of goaltender season that can win an MVP when there is not an easy top level season by a skater to vote for. Lidstrom was the best defenceman in the NHL that year but I don't love his MVP case, at least not in terms of top three. Datsyuk and Zetterberg were elite that season and Detroit played very effective hockey under Babcock. I'd like him more in a most outstanding player trophy. Crosby and especially Ovechkin deserve credit for excellence while playing with... nothing really, but they still weren't Thornton and Jagr that year.
Looking at the actual results I like them at the very top. Thornton and Jagr quite close, and then Kiprusoff on an island on his own in third.
Felidae
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Yeah that's the idea. Though I think it's also worth revisiting some trophy wins that weren't close calls that perhaps in retrospect, should have been. A few come to mind for me
Also, If anyone wants to make their own thread for another trophy revisit.. go for it. Lots of awards and seasons to go through.
I actually have the opposite view. I think this is by far his closest call. I know the voting in 2000 was closer, but those missed games really hurt him. It took a historical season for Lemieux to be able to do it in 1992-93 when he couldn't do it in 1991-92. Even though the latter season he dominated his peers to an even greater degree than Jagr did.
As for 1995, I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue Jagr>Lindros that year, especially compared to 2005.
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BigBadBruins7708
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Thornton was the rightful winner.
33 pts in 23 games on a terribly Bruins team and 92 in 58 in San Jose, a SJ team that was 8-12-4 before Thornton and 36-15-7 after. Additionally his 96 assists were behind only Gretzky/Mario/Orr/Oates all time.
There's other seasons (95, 00) that Jagr has a stronger case of being robbed in than this one. Thornton just outplayed him
33 pts in 23 games on a terribly Bruins team and 92 in 58 in San Jose, a SJ team that was 8-12-4 before Thornton and 36-15-7 after. Additionally his 96 assists were behind only Gretzky/Mario/Orr/Oates all time.
There's other seasons (95, 00) that Jagr has a stronger case of being robbed in than this one. Thornton just outplayed him
overpass
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Alan Ryder's Player Contribution statistic - an all-in-one stat which was like a better version of Point Shares, but was still limited by the quality of the underlying statistics - rated Sergei Zubov as the most valuable player for the 2005-06 season.
A surprising result, considering Zubov was only 3rd in Norris voting with no first place votes, and didn't receive a single vote for the Hart trophy. But consider his team context and you can see how the numbers would point this way. Dallas finished with 112 points and the third best record in the league. And Zubov played almost 500 more minutes than the #2 Dallas skater, led the team in TOI in all situations, and was only 6 points behind Modano for the team lead in points.
Zubov's shootout success put him over the top in the Player Contribution formula. Dallas dominated the shootout in its first season with a 12-1 record, led by Zubov and Jussi Jokinen. Zubov scored on 7 of 12 shots and led the team with 4 game deciding goals in the shootout. He was particularly impressive relative to his blueline peers, as his 7 shootout goals almost matched the combined season total for all other defencemen in the league (10), and his 4 game deciding goals were more than all other defencemen combined (3, including Marek Malik's legendary goal). Dallas took 24 points out of 13 games that went to shootouts, and if you give Zubov full credit for his contribution to those points, it's quite a bit of value.
But we've had the shootout for almost 20 years now and I don't know that anyone actually looks at shootout success when voting for the Hart trophy. I'm generally OK with ignoring it as a regular season gimmick with no value in the playoffs. But on the other hand, if you are voting on a regular season award, shouldn't you consider value added in the shootout as well?
Of the other Hart trophy contenders listed here, Ovechkin was the only skater to add value in the shootout.
Ovechkin - 6/13
Crosby - 2/6
Jagr - 2/8
Alfredsson - 2/8
Staal - 1/4
Thornton - 1/5
Lidstrom - 0/0
Niedermayer - 0/1
Looking at the goalies, Brodeur and Lundqvist were both above average in the shootout this season. Kiprusoff was pretty bad, and if you count this against him it probably takes him out of Hart contention.
Brodeur - 8-3, saved 29/38 (0.763)
Kiprusoff - 1-7, saved 11/23 (0.478)
Lundqvist - 4-3, saved 28/37 (0.757)
In the end I don't think I would have put full weight on the shootout results, and I would have voted Jagr and Thornton as the top 2. But it's interesting that there is a statistical argument for a player who didn't receive a single vote.
A surprising result, considering Zubov was only 3rd in Norris voting with no first place votes, and didn't receive a single vote for the Hart trophy. But consider his team context and you can see how the numbers would point this way. Dallas finished with 112 points and the third best record in the league. And Zubov played almost 500 more minutes than the #2 Dallas skater, led the team in TOI in all situations, and was only 6 points behind Modano for the team lead in points.
Zubov's shootout success put him over the top in the Player Contribution formula. Dallas dominated the shootout in its first season with a 12-1 record, led by Zubov and Jussi Jokinen. Zubov scored on 7 of 12 shots and led the team with 4 game deciding goals in the shootout. He was particularly impressive relative to his blueline peers, as his 7 shootout goals almost matched the combined season total for all other defencemen in the league (10), and his 4 game deciding goals were more than all other defencemen combined (3, including Marek Malik's legendary goal). Dallas took 24 points out of 13 games that went to shootouts, and if you give Zubov full credit for his contribution to those points, it's quite a bit of value.
But we've had the shootout for almost 20 years now and I don't know that anyone actually looks at shootout success when voting for the Hart trophy. I'm generally OK with ignoring it as a regular season gimmick with no value in the playoffs. But on the other hand, if you are voting on a regular season award, shouldn't you consider value added in the shootout as well?
Of the other Hart trophy contenders listed here, Ovechkin was the only skater to add value in the shootout.
Ovechkin - 6/13
Crosby - 2/6
Jagr - 2/8
Alfredsson - 2/8
Staal - 1/4
Thornton - 1/5
Lidstrom - 0/0
Niedermayer - 0/1
Looking at the goalies, Brodeur and Lundqvist were both above average in the shootout this season. Kiprusoff was pretty bad, and if you count this against him it probably takes him out of Hart contention.
Brodeur - 8-3, saved 29/38 (0.763)
Kiprusoff - 1-7, saved 11/23 (0.478)
Lundqvist - 4-3, saved 28/37 (0.757)
In the end I don't think I would have put full weight on the shootout results, and I would have voted Jagr and Thornton as the top 2. But it's interesting that there is a statistical argument for a player who didn't receive a single vote.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Always thought Thornton had such a great season because of the trade.
Played that season with something to prove.
There was a reason the Bruins traded Joe. He had a new contract and played like a dog to start the season. Harry Sinden really liked his players to earn their money. Trade was a huge motivator for Thornton.
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