Is the Selke an accurate award?

[DaveG]

Considering I assume they're used in contract negotiations and HHOF induction I think they're a big deal.

remains to be seen how much they take into account for HHoF induction. Carbo got in, but Brind'Amour and Lehtinen are still on the outside waiting and not sure if either ever gets in at this point.

 

[Soul Assumption]

There are only three accurate awards - Richard Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Jennings Trophy.

 

[tyhee]

The Norris is more inaccurate because you can score 100s of points as a defenseman and your team can still be one of the worst five teams in the league because you suck at defense, Erik.

The Norris is different in nature from the Selke, though.

The Norris is for the best player at a position. If a defenceman is extremely effective offensively and not too bad defensively he can have a legitimate claim to the Norris. A forward, to have a legitimate claim to the Selke, doesn't have to be the best player overall at his position but the best defensive player at his position of forward.

The winner of the Selke is supposed to be the best defensive forward. The winner of the Norris should be the best defenceman overall.

The Selke voting is probably somewhat inaccurate as people don't have good, commonly available statistical measurements of defensive prowess by forwards. On the other hand, trophies such as the Masterton (player who best exemplifies persevereance, sportsmanship and dedication) and the Messier (leadership by positive example through on-ice performance, motivation of team members and a dedication to community activities and charitable causes) are probably even more difficult for most voters to judge based on the information available to them, so I would say that the Selke voting is not the most inaccurate among NHL awards.

 

[SuperScript29]

It's a hard trophy to asses, but in my book, here's what I look for:

A- Decent offensive numbers, it doesn't have to be all-star numbers, but something that separates you from your average bottom-6 forwards.

B- I get that +/- tends to be a team effort, but your +/- needs to be among the best in your team. For instance if you're a +5 while carrying the heavy duty in your line-up, while the rest of your team is on average a -15, then you're a heck of a defensive player.

C- PK time is necessary in my book, if you're supposed to be among the best defensive forwards in the league, then your coach better be putting you out there during the PK.

Barkov won it last year, let's see how he faired on the 3 points above:

A- He had 78 points in 68 games, those are NHL star numbers offensively.
B- He was +10 while his team had an average of +2.
C- Over 2 minutes average of PK time, and when you look at it league wide, he had the highest PK time as an NHL star.

Based on those metrics, Barkov was a great choice last season to win it.

 

[acor]

Considering I assume they're used in contract negotiations and HHOF induction I think they're a big deal.

HHoF also is not a big deal IMO... I mean, maybe such honors are important for (some) players, but why fans are arguing about who "deserve" such, or such award, or citing awards in discussions on who is/was better players, I don' understand it.

 

[Midnight Judges]

While Matthews is ok defensively for a scorer, his coaches match him up to get him away from the opponents' checkers. I doubt he has ever been intentionally used to shut down the opponents' scorers.

That's why zone starts are a good indicator of which players are being deployed for match-ups or in a shut down role.

Matthews is getting nearly 70% of his face-offs in the offensive zone - which means he isn't being deployed to shut down other top players (who are also being overwhelmingly deployed in the offensive zone).

There are lots of players who actually are serving that role. It's generally not sexy household names.

70% o-zone starts and being heavily relied on to shut down top players - these two things are mutually exclusive.

 

[Midnight Judges]

It's a hard trophy to asses, but in my book, here's what I look for:

A- Decent offensive numbers, it doesn't have to be all-star numbers, but something that separates you from your average bottom-6 forwards.

Why? That's not part of the criteria for the award.

The criteria is:

"the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game."

And why should bottom 6 forwards be excluded? Whoever is excelling at defense should be the guy.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

No less accurate than the Hart/Vezina/Norris. They're all prone to media/market bias. Only the Art Ross and Richard are objective.

 

[MadLuke]

Reputation heavy award like the Selke create 2 phenomenon:

) Very little accuracy
) Never any winner that jump out as a odd choice over time, every winner are deserving winner.

I.E. every one that win are actually good 2 way forward, but not necessarily the best that season.

Winning only and in good part because you have a reputation to having been good at it for a long time is one of the least bothering award bias there is.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

HHoF also is not a big deal IMO... I mean, maybe such honors are important for (some) players, but why fans are arguing about who "deserve" such, or such award, or citing awards in discussions on who is/was better players, I don' understand it.

You really don't understand why players would want to be included in the list of the best of all time?

 

[Buck Naked]

It's a hard trophy to asses, but in my book, here's what I look for:

Too bad there are so many asses voting on it then.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

....they got it right...if it's my guy or a guy I don't hate!

 

[Golden_Jet]

With a 165 first place votes, out of 193 possible, they for sure got it right this season.

 

[Aurinko]

The bergeron award goas to.... Barkov probably next X times in row in the next 5 years. And everyone will agree except the fans of the other candidates.

Norris on the other hand is a complete shitfest and nothing to do with defense. Forward doing too much defense is ok, but defenseman that leaks on defense in not.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

At the end of the day, the only "accurate" awards are the counting awards like the Art Ross and the Rocket

 

[guzzy]

The fact that McDavid received 1 vote for Selke, diminishes the award. Whoever cast that vote should lose their ability to vote moving forward. There are legitimate two way forwards in the game. McDavid isn't in the top 20 of those players, let alone deserving of a single vote.

 

[Voight]

I think it was better when guys like John Madden, Jere Lehtinen and Mike Peca were winning it, vs now where a lot of the times guys who win it usually have to score a decent amount of points.

 

[SuperScript29]

Why? That's not part of the criteria for the award.

The criteria is:

"the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game."

And why should bottom 6 forwards be excluded? Whoever is excelling at defense should be the guy.

Fair enough, but I'm not asking for superstar numbers, at least surpass the 35+ point mark. Offensive contributions after all, can also come from good defensive plays.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I just don’t know if any of the awards being voted on by the PHWA are “accurate”. Some of these guys are hacks. Remember when they voted Ovi for LW and RW for the year end all star teams? I don’t put much stock in the awards that they vote on. The awards are mostly just fluff anyway.

One member of the Pittsburgh media was famously mocked because he couldn't understand the term "F3" and who that was on the ice. It was pretty funny watching James Neal and Geno Malkin getting exasperated trying to explain it to him.

And this is someone who votes on the Selke. He doesn't even understand terms like "F3", but we're meant to believe he's knowledgeable enough to rate each player's defensive ability?

 

[Midnight Judges]

The fact that McDavid received 1 vote for Selke, diminishes the award. Whoever cast that vote should lose their ability to vote moving forward. There are legitimate two way forwards in the game. McDavid isn't in the top 20 of those players, let alone deserving of a single vote.

McDavid was significantly better defensively this season than Sidney Crosby - except Crosby somehow managed to get 25 votes, including 2 first place votes.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

It's probably the best 2-way forward award today. Then again I don't know who would have deserved it more than Barkov.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

The problem I have with the Selke trophy isn't that it's inaccurate. The issue is it's inconsistent.

The voters keep changing what they're voting for. When the trophy was first awarded, it usually went to purely defensive forwards (Gainey, Jarvis, Ramsey, Kasper, Carbonneau). There were a lot of excellent two-way forwards, but they didn't get much Selke consideration because they scored too much (Trottier, Messier, Kurri).

For a period of time, the voters started giving the trophy to strong two-way forwards (Francis, Gilmour, Fedorov, Yzerman) - even though they weren't purely defensive players. The pendulum keeps swinging back and forth. During much of the Dead Puck Era, most of the Selke winners were pretty clearly focused on defensive responsibilities (even if some of them had some scoring talent - Lehtinen, Peca, Draper, Madden).

Nowadays, the voters seem to be looking at two-way play (Bergeron, Datsyuk, Kopitar, Toews). From the 2005 lockout onwards, every Selke trophy winner has scored at least 50+ points (except for Toews in 2013, but he was on pace for around 70 points). In contrast, during the first 15 years the Selke was awarded, only five of those players score 50+ points. Twenty years ago, it would have been inconceivable that a Selke finalist didn't play much on the penalty kill and had close to 60% offensive zone starts at ES.

It's much harder to evaluate defensive player through statistics, so reputation and "the narrative" that tends to form late in the season play a big role.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

McDavid was significantly better defensively this season than Sidney Crosby - except Crosby somehow managed to get 25 votes, including 2 first place votes.

Your obsession with Crosby is truly astounding.

There could be a season where Crosby gets a 5th place throwaway vote and you'll make it seem like the crime of the century even when other "offensive-only" players get more votes than him.

 

[eojsmada]

Finalists/Winners of any PHWA award is always pretty heavy on the media bias versus what the actual player contributes relative to the rest of the league. My guess is that the way they even determine candidates is to select one or two from each team and then toss them into the "bin of insanity" and see where each voter puts them without any real criteria, because that "criteria" would have been met in their initial selection from each team. So from then on it becomes a relative "popularity contest".

 

[Oddbob]

This. There are often nominees even who raise eyebrows, but I can’t think of anyone who’s actually won where you can’t at least make an argument he was the best.

Most of the bad votes come from Toronto/Canadian teams writers and as such players on those teams unfairly get votes. No way is Matthews a top 3 defensive forward in the NHL. Connor and Leon also get votes a good amount of the time, and they play no defence at all.

McDavid was significantly better defensively this season than Sidney Crosby - except Crosby somehow managed to get 25 votes, including 2 first place votes.

McDavid and defence don't compute. I don't even like Sid, but Sid is miles better defensively than Connor.