Award Winners in All-Canadian NHL

[JackSlater]

I originally wrote this out in an email to a friend I discuss sports with, but I will include it here as a thread since I already wrote it out. Below is the email with one exception.

For more than half of NHL history NHL awards were dominated exclusively by Canadian players (Brimsek excluded). The reason is pretty obvious - almost the whole league was Canadian. This began to change in the mid 1980s with Langway winning Norris trophies, and significantly changed by the 1990s when Hart, Art Ross, and Norris trophies went to non-Canadians several times. This is an attempt to look at what a non-international league may look like in terms of awards, mainly to give a sort of rough idea for comparison with the past. I took the Canadian who did best in award voting or highest in scoring and gave them the award. Basically to squint at it and see something sort of similar to NHL awards before the 1980s.

I am not saying that this is how NHL awards would have turned out if the league was only-Canadian. There are several reasons for this. Voters would vote differently in some cases if a big favourite was suddenly not available to vote for, some players may have been less successful without a non-Canadian teammate or two, and most significantly a Canadian only league would look drastically different by 2024 than the actually NHL looks.

Note 1 - I considered any Canadian trained player to be available, regardless of what national team they played for or even their citizenship. This is because the NHL of the past was not explicitly Canadian only, but a player who trained outside of Canada had little realistic change in terms of development. This means that Mikita, Brett Hull, and Quinn Hughes all keep their trophies. Mark Howe does not get the 1984 Norris despite his stint playing for Canada.

Note 2 - I only looked at the Hart, Art Ross, and Norris trophies. The Vezina is too messy historically for me with several decades as the Jennings in disguise and uncertainty that the first all star team winner is equivalent to the modern Vezina winner. I'm not that interested in the Richard when I can look at the Art Ross and Lindsay voting records are not always available.

Hart Trophy

Year	Actual Winner	New Winner
1994	Fedorov	Gilmour
1997	Hasek	Kariya
1998	Hasek	Brodeur
1999	Jagr	Joseph
2003	Forsberg	Brodeur
2008	Ovechkin	Iginla
2009	Ovechkin	Mason
2010	H. Sedin	Crosby
2012	Malkin	Stamkos
2013	Ovechkin	Crosby
2016	Kane	Crosby
2019	Kucherov	Crosby
2020	Draisaitl	MacKinnon
2022	Matthews	McDavid​

A few thoughts:

• Feels like there is no chance those goalie Harts would happen, even though you get the odd weird one like Theodore.
• Brodeur getting two surprises me regardless. Overall it looks sort of like how Rayner and Rollins got Harts over a span of 5 seasons.
• Gilmour, Brodeur 98, Joseph, and Mason were all fourth place finishers in reality. Not shocking that these are some of the most suspect new "winners".
• Crosby is the big winner here. *(added from email but you're welcome daver)

Art Ross Trophy

Year	Actual Winner	New Winner
1995	Jagr	Lindros
1998	Jagr	Gretzky
1999	Jagr	Kariya
2000	Jagr	Recchi
2001	Jagr	Sakic
2003	Forsberg	Thornton
2008	Ovechkin	Iginla
2009	Malkin	Crosby
2010	H. Sedin	Crosby
2011	D. Sedin	St. Louis
2012	Malkin	Stamkos
2016	Kane	Benn
2019	Kucherov	McDavid
2020	Draisaitl	McDavid
2024	Kucherov	MacKinnon

A few thoughts:

• Had a laugh that Gretzky picks up yet "another" Art Ross.
• St. Louis, three time Art Ross "winner".
• Benn laughing historically with his second "win".
• These results feel less wonky than the Hart ones

Norris Trophy

Year	Actual Winner	New Winner
1983	Langway	Bourque
1984	Langway	Coffey
1989	Chelios	Coffey
1992	Leetch	Bourque
1993	Chelios	Bourque
1996	Chelios	Bourque
1997	Leetch	Stevens
2001	Lidstrom	Bourque
2002	Lidstrom	Blake
2003	Lidstrom	MacInnis
2006	Lidstrom	Niedermayer
2007	Lidstrom	Niedermayer
2008	Lidstrom	Phaneuf
2009	Chara	Green
2011	Lidstrom	Weber
2012	Karlsson	Weber
2015	Karlsson	Doughty
2018	Hedman	Doughty
2020	Josi	Pietrangelo
2021	Fox	Makar
2023	Karlsson	Makar

A few thoughts:

• Bourque with 10 Norris trophies is f***ed.
• Media would be all over Niedermayer's knob even more with 3 Norris trophies.
• I was surprised about Stevens in 1997. He was fourth in actual voting.
• Phaneuf and Green back to back. Woof.
• Doughty with three and basically par with Pilote feels right.

I think that how closely this compares to award results for pre-international NHL, in terms of a level playing field, is debatable. Most would agree that awards are generally harder today than at most points in history, and trends also change in terms of how voters vote.

Anyway, thoughts? Surprises? Errors?

Click to read more...

 

[MadLuke]

I think for everything subjective, get really hard with voter fatigue, storyline and what not,

And what Kariya season (and for the Hart the Ducks, winning the Hart without making the playoff is not easy) look like without Selanne.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Daver eating big tonight. Crosby would certainly win in 2009 and 2010. I don't see McDavid losing in 2019 though.


I get giving it to number 2, but I don't see that shaking out in real life. Gretzky got no love in 1994. But if he's 18 points ahead of Francis for second he's going to get Hart votes.

Kariya without Selanne is a big question mark.

Lemieux 1997 would do well. 122 points in a league where no one else hits 100.

Gretzky 1998 would get some love. Only two other Canadians topped 80 points.

 

[daver]

Other than a fun thing to do, the "All Canadian" premise goes way too far down the hypothetical rabbit hole for me to be added as reasonable consideration similar to the in-depth look at the talent pool.

Back in the O6, there was also a lack of players from the Maritimes, so the OP should remove Crosby, MacKinnon and MacInnes from the mix.

 

[Johnny Engine]

You may be surprised to know that 48 of the 168 people born in the 3 maritime provinces listed on hockey reference started their careers before 1970, compared to 779 of 2400 for Ontario (yes, Ontario has produced a round 2400, isn't that odd?), so 29% vs 32%. That includes star players Gordie Drillon (Moncton) and Flash Hollett (North Sydney). Also oddly, the real outlier in this comparison is PEI, who (small sample alert) only sent 4 players to the NHL before 1970, so goodbye to Brad Richards' Smythe and any future Norris attention for Noah Dobson I suppose?

And yes, I've considered that the 2400 Ontarians might be cutting off a bunch of records for database reasons, but a quick scan shows both Newsy Lalonde and current rookies, and both one game obscurities and Wayne Gretzky, so I don't know what would be thrown out. If someone thinks there are records thrown out of that search and can enlighten me, let me know.