Best player in the world: 2003

[SimpleJack]

Lemieux was the best player for the entire first half of the season. Naslund was the best for the middle half. Forsberg was the best for the entire second half. Take your pick really, based on preference.

Nothing wrong with taking the player who won the awards, but it’s actually kind of hard for me to not pick Naslund since he was awesome the second half of the prior season and only lost the Art Ross on the final day, and put together another really good first half the following season. It’s quite a bit of time to be at or near the top of the league while playing all the games. He still ended up winning the Pearson as well.

Normally, this forum swears by the winner of the Pearson, but I guess it doesn’t fit the narrative this time around.

Ultimately, Lemieux’s first half was again on another level, but also was pretty much contained to 2002. Tough choice.

Woah woah woah….just how many “half” seasons are we counting here during one full season? Can’t possibly be more than 2….what’s this “middle half” nonsense??

 

[Video Nasty]

Woah woah woah….just how many “half” seasons are we counting here during one full season? Can’t possibly be more than 2….what’s this “middle half” nonsense??

By middle half, I meant a continuous stretch of half a seasons’ worth of games. I’m just providing additional context since not everything is cut and dry right down the middle.

Because Naslund lost the Art Ross on the final day of the season, I think most of his season gets shoved under the bed. If he didn’t win the Pearson, I feel like it would be entirely discarded by this point. I just don’t want history to forget that Naslund was white hot from about the first third of the season until the final quarter and had the mindshare of being the leader in the Art Ross race for such a long stretch of the season. He was also the leader in the Rocket race, which nobody cared about back then, because it was still seen as something of a gimmick trophy being in just its fifth year of existence and little to no prestige built up yet (mostly thanks to Ovechkin at this point).

From December 14 through March 11, he had 59 points in 41 games and led the Rocket and Art Ross race, something he would continue to do all the way through April 3 for the Rocket and of course losing the Ross on April 6.

Nonsense perhaps, not meant to be inspire triple whoas and double exclamations, but just some additional context that we had three different of players dueling for the crown of best players and all the trophies.

Not meant to downplay Forsberg or ignore that he got hot too at virtually the same point and ultimately squeaked it out at the literal end, while also recognizing that he played 7 less games. Merely meant to remember Naslund for a moment since his season tends to get written in as a footnote on losing trophies in the final games of a season.