Is the Selke an accurate award?

[Sidney the Kidney]

ESGA
ESGA/60
PK TOI
ES D-zone %
ES CFrel

basically the best currently available way to measure utilization and results

If we're going to use GA, then it's better to use 5on5 rather than ES because ES includes EN goals against. I don't think judging a player's "defense" when their entire purpose is on trying to score to tie the game and not to "defend" is questionable.

 

[Fantomas]

Typically an award given to a scoring line forward who can play defense. But not the best defensive forward.

 

[AvroArrow]

Inaccurate, it's supposed to be for the best defensive forward but offensive output always has a bit of a factor. Like it says "best excels in the defensive aspect of the game"

Like Danault should have at least been a nominee at some point. Marian Hossa was maybe the best defensive or 2 way winger I have ever seen and nothing because he doesn't play C.

Like not that the guys who have won aren't elite defensively, they absolutely are. But why do wingers get no love here ? Or a 3C ? It's always the star 1C that plays a 2 way game as opposed to the best defensive forward.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Marian Hossa was maybe the best defensive or 2 way winger I have ever seen and nothing because he doesn't play C.

Agree, he was great everywhere he played, he hustled just as hard back checking as offense. Every teammate/ coach in Ottawa, Atlanta, Pittsburg and Chicago raved about his effort on 2 way play. Crazy he never had more love, like you said was a winger.

 

[Matty Sundin]

It’s an award you can’t go look at stats and decide. It’s why voting has been all over the place or based on reputation

 

[Buck Naked]

It's not an award that should be stats based or judged by untrained eyes.

If it's your full-time job to watch and analyze hockey, you don't have an untrained eye. Many of the voters are extremely skilled in evaluating players and analyzing hockey. The problem is that there are way too many voters who can't put their bias aside and many who don't put in the effort it should take to make an informed decision. Sure, there are absolutely a few voters who might have an untrained eye, but to think that just because you don't play in the NHL, you don't know what to look for is just dumb.

 

[Goose]

People in the conversation for the award usually make sense, though the Matthews haters will disagree.

Hard to judge “best” on something like this though.

 

[joestevens29]

Coach of the year is the most inaccurate. There are only 2 options:

-Team has the best record in the league so the coach had to do something correct, right?
-Last years team was bad and this years team is good. That must mean this years coach was proportionately better than last years coach.

GM of the year is kinda messed up in my opinion too.

 

[Felidae]

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.

How does this have 30+ likes?

Saying Karlsson's defense was the reason SJS sucked that year is an awful take.
His offensive output surely outweighed any defensive deficiencies he had. The team would have been even worse without him.

 

[Golden_Jet]

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.

Pretty sure every defenseman who got 100+ points won the Norris, as they should.
Especially since even strength he had the second most points as well, behind McDavid.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

Hard to quantify defensive play, so I feel like it just ends up as a mostly reputation award. Barkov winning this year kind of feels like he was just the best of the remaining guys post Bergeron. The way Bergeron was winning them just felt different from the Barkov win this year. Felt like he actually dominated defensively instead of just being all around solid like Barkov. Sort of like the difference between a Tim Thomas vezina win and whoever wins this year. Thomas felt like he just outright earned the award, not like this year where it’s more about being the best option. I would like to see how some people are quantifying Barkov’s defensive impact.

Barkov’s on ice/off ice stats are pretty unreal. It’s pretty clear to see his impact when the goal differential notably changes based on whether he is out there or not.

 

[Moose Head]

Inaccurate, it's supposed to be for the best defensive forward but offensive output always has a bit of a factor. Like it says "best excels in the defensive aspect of the game"

Like Danault should have at least been a nominee at some point. Marian Hossa was maybe the best defensive or 2 way winger I have ever seen and nothing because he doesn't play C.

Like not that the guys who have won aren't elite defensively, they absolutely are. But why do wingers get no love here ? Or a 3C ? It's always the star 1C that plays a 2 way game as opposed to the best defensive forward.

When the award was first established, and Gainey and Carbo dominated it, it was based on the criteria, the best defensive forward. If they had awarded it back then on the criteria they use now, Gainey and Carbo wouldn’t have a single Selke. Their awards would have gone to guys like Clarke, Trottier and Messier.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

People in the conversation for the award usually make sense, though the Matthews haters will disagree.

Hard to judge “best” on something like this though.

It does usually 'make sense' so we can agree on that.

There are usually 2 players on a line that seem to get a lot of love for 2 way play. The winner will always have that guy a little bit down the ballot. So Marchand with Bergeron, Reinhart with Barkov, and even to a lesser extent we have Matthews with Marner.

Now what is interesting about the Matthews/Marner thing is that the media can't seem to get on the same page, due to the fact that they don't play traditional positions. Marner is the facilitator and the one you want with the puck on the stick most of the time. Since Matthews isn't driving the play on his line, with or without Marner, he should be one of the first guys back and have the freshest legs to pressure defenders looking for a takeaway. There are tons of guys who do that better than him, like Jarnkrok who wouldn't be in the league if he didn't hustle on the penalty kill. But there are few guys who can be trusted with the puck on their stick going up ice, and that is why Marner will always get a lot of penalty kill minutes, much more than Matthews, and likely always steal Selke votes.

 

[I am Bettman]

Barkov’s on ice/off ice stats are pretty unreal. It’s pretty clear to see his impact when the goal differential notably changes based on whether he is out there or not.

I feel like that is sometimes misleading because it can be heavily influenced by offensive play. I know the whole “the best defense is a good offense” thing, but it can also be influenced by teammates. Somebody like Barkov gets to play with Verhaeghe and Reinhart, while a player like Dickinson is playing with the spare parts of a horrible Chicago team and still ended up a plus 4.

 

[MacMacandBarbie]

I feel like that is sometimes misleading because it can be heavily influenced by offensive play. I know the whole “the best defense is a good offense” thing, but it can also be influenced by teammates. Somebody like Barkov gets to play with Verhaeghe and Reinhart, while a player like Dickinson is playing with the spare parts of a horrible Chicago team and still ended up a plus 4.

Verhaeghe is a center, Barkov never plays with him. The stats are pretty solid across the board if you want to go on a deep dive, but goals against average going down for example isn’t influenced at all by offense.

 

[AUAIOMRN]

No voted-on award is accurate.

 

[Hobnobs]

When they nominate Auston Matthews? No. It's not.

 

[Kegs]

Being that the media aren't hockey experts and playing defense is the most difficult trait to accurately measure by stats and probably by the eye test as well and the fact that it seems that a lot of players just get nominations year after year, is it the most inaccurate award?

No it’s not. It should be called the Patrice Bergeron trophy. Nhl needs to fix that asap.

 

[Goose]

It does usually 'make sense' so we can agree on that.

There are usually 2 players on a line that seem to get a lot of love for 2 way play. The winner will always have that guy a little bit down the ballot. So Marchand with Bergeron, Reinhart with Barkov, and even to a lesser extent we have Matthews with Marner.

Now what is interesting about the Matthews/Marner thing is that the media can't seem to get on the same page, due to the fact that they don't play traditional positions. Marner is the facilitator and the one you want with the puck on the stick most of the time. Since Matthews isn't driving the play on his line, with or without Marner, he should be one of the first guys back and have the freshest legs to pressure defenders looking for a takeaway. There are tons of guys who do that better than him, like Jarnkrok who wouldn't be in the league if he didn't hustle on the penalty kill. But there are few guys who can be trusted with the puck on their stick going up ice, and that is why Marner will always get a lot of penalty kill minutes, much more than Matthews, and likely always steal Selke votes.

This post is too smart for these boards, just FYI.

Try something like "Lol, Marner doing his fancy little regular season dangles is the only reason Matthews is set up defensively, and who cares anyway, because the Leafs will never win a cup with $20+ mil tied up in those snowflakes."