Messier, ‘89-‘90 vs ‘91-‘92

[scott clam]

if it's a toss up or in the absence of a guy who obviously owned the year (the best post-oilers gretzky example is '93 mario, but more recently 2008 ovechkin, 2012 malkin, 2016 kane, kucherov last year), it'll almost always go to either a guy who was scorching hot to end the year (theodore, forsberg, thornton, henrik sedin, perry, 2013 ovechkin, taylor hall) or a new team guy ('89 gretzky, '92 messier, thornton again).

I agree with your logic. And yet one thing it doesn't explain, is how Mario owned 1989 but still got hosed!

 

[JackSlater]

He also won the Pearson Trophy and the 1st Team selection over Mario Lemieux, so even if we disregard the “valuable” aspect, it was a clean sweep - unlike 1989, for instance, where voters distinguished between Gretzky being more valuable and Lemieux being the better player.

All-Star Voting
Messier: 38-11-10
Lemieux: 20-26-14

Given that the option was available and that they had taken it just three years prior, that the media didn’t largely go with the cop out of giving Messier the Hart while acknowledging Lemieux as having the better season suggests that it would not be revisionism to say that Messier rather than Lemieux had the better season.

I don't know why you quoted me to talk about who had the better season when my post talked about, and responded to a post that was talking about, who the better player was perceived to be that year. There are a variety of reasons that Lemieux may have lost out on the Hart or other selections, the chief reason very likely being that he missed a fifth of the season. The revisionism is to suggest that there was a noteworthy number of people who actually thought that Messier was a better player than Lemieux at the time because the writers voted to give him the Hart that year.

It is not groundbreaking to recognize that very often the Hart winner is not the player that people believe is actually the best player in the NHL at the time.

 

[Sentinel]

What you are promoting is revisionism. Basically everyone was well aware that Lemieux was the best player in hockey at the time. Messier had an elite year and a extremely palatable media narrative with his arrival in New York and was voted to receive the Hart, and good for him. Blatant trophy counting really isn't something that should be promoted though, especially as a proxy for something that the trophy in question isn't even meant to assess.

You don't get to redefine "revisionism." It has a pretty clear definition.
Messier rightfully won the MVP award that year. That means he was better than Lemieux, all things considered... including the fact that Mario missed 21 games and his Penguins didn't make playoffs.
I don't see anything wrong with trophy counting. Some people win, others don't.

 

[MadLuke]

Messier rightfully won the MVP award that year. That means he was better than Lemieux, all things considered... including the fact that Mario missed 21 games and his Penguins didn't make playoffs.

That mean he had a better season not that he was better at playing hockey (i.e. it does not mean more teams/fans would have picked Messier ahead of Lemieux if they could have drafted one player for the playoff that year).

 

[JackSlater]

You don't get to redefine "revisionism." It has a pretty clear definition.
Messier rightfully won the MVP award that year. That means he was better than Lemieux, all things considered... including the fact that Mario missed 21 games and his Penguins didn't make playoffs.
I don't see anything wrong with trophy counting. Some people win, others don't.

There are so many errors here. First, revision would be claiming that Lemieux actually won the Hart, just like revision is claiming that people believed that Messier was the better player in 1992. If anyone wants to chime in and claim that they and many people they knew thought that Messier was a better player than Lemieux was in or around 1992 I'm all ears. Second, it's extremely debatable whether Messier deserved the Hart in 1992. I guess he was rightful in the sense that he didn't rig the awards or anything but by no means is he the obvious choice. Third, the Hart doesn't even attempt to measure who was better by its own definition. Fourth, the Hart is not divinely awarded and by no means is definite proof of who the most valuable player was, better yet who the best player was at the time.

The problem with trophy counting should be pretty clear to anyone with a remote interest in applying thought to hockey in general. What's worse however is using trophy counting to reach a conclusion that the trophy in question doesn't even attempt to assess.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I don't know why you quoted me to talk about who had the better season when my post talked about, and responded to a post that was talking about, who the better player was perceived to be that year. There are a variety of reasons that Lemieux may have lost out on the Hart or other selections, the chief reason very likely being that he missed a fifth of the season. The revisionism is to suggest that there was a noteworthy number of people who actually thought that Messier was a better player than Lemieux at the time because the writers voted to give him the Hart that year.

It is not groundbreaking to recognize that very often the Hart winner is not the player that people believe is actually the best player in the NHL at the time.

So are you talking about the larger perception? The one that says Draisaitl isn’t the best player this year because McDavid exists? Or for another recent example, Malkin wasn’t the best player in 2012 because Crosby exists? Where it’s not enough to just have the better season but a player must out-race the ghost of another player’s recent seasons? That’s fair.

But given that Messier took two of three Pearson Trophies for Most Outstanding Player between 1990 and 1992 to go along with his Most Valuable Player selections means that it wasn’t just the usual Hart narrative that resulted in situations like Rogie Vachon placing above Bobby Orr in his Art Ross year (1975), or Clarke and Esposito splitting the 1st Team and Hart (1973).

Messier played at the same position as Lemieux (and Gretzky) so there were two other awards races with less ambiguous definitions than the Hart where the perception of his season was vetted.

So when you say “very often the Hart winner is not the player that people believe is actually the best player in the NHL” or that it is “something that the trophy in question isn't even meant to assess”, you’re certainly not wrong, but Mark Messier didn’t only win Hart Trophies. By 1992, the Pearson had been operating under its new definition of “Most Outstanding Player” for some time.

 

[The Panther]

I agree with your logic. And yet one thing it doesn't explain, is how Mario owned 1989 but still got hosed!

Well, actually it does explain it -- it's a very similar situation. I would argue that the 1989 Hart result is much less surprising (and more logical, if not necessarily "correct") than the 1992 one.

So, in 1989, you've got Lemieux with a scoring title on a team that went from 81 points to 87 points (12th of 21 teams to 6th of 21 teams), and you've got Gretzky with 168 points (100 fewer PP opportunities than Lemieux, while we're at it, with the same ES production), on a team that went from 68 points to 91 points (18th of 21 teams to 4th of 21 teams).

While I would personally have voted Lemieux for the '89 Hart, you can't really say a guy got "hosed" when another forward had 168 points and led a team from 4th-worst to 4th-best in one season. Imagine if, in the 2020-21 season, a guy gets 140 points and his team goes from 18th overall to 4th overall. I mean, quite clearly, that's an MVP level season, no 'ifs, and, or buts' about it.

The 1992 Messier thing is considerably more surprising to me -- not so much in that Messier ultimately won the Hart (which I generally agree with, with some reservations), but more so in how completely one-sided his victory was (which Gretzky over Lemieux in '89 was not). The Rangers similarly went from 85 points (8th overall) to 105 points (1st overall) in Messier's first season there. Full marks to Mess for an amazing season, and full value for the Hart . . . it's just that he probably wasn't even one of the top three or four players in the NHL that season, and I'm not even sure he was "better" than Brian Leetch that season (bearing in mind, as you all know, I'm a huge Messier fan). In fact, I kind of doubt he was more valuable to his team on the ice than Leetch was -- as to off the ice, we can only speculate, but it does seem like he motivated the players and brought them together. But it's just such an overwhelming Hart win that you'd expect he'd have out-performed his own 1989-90 season, but to me, he clearly didn't.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Second, it's extremely debatable whether Messier deserved the Hart in 1992. I guess he was rightful in the sense that he didn't rig the awards or anything but by no means is he the obvious choice.

See, I think that would have to be considered more revisionist than Sentinel’s suggestion. I’m sure we’ve all disagreed with near-consensus award winners at one point or another, but saying that a player who took a 67-to-2 decision was an “extremely debatable” candidate or not “the obvious choice” seems incorrect.

 

[Sentinel]

That mean he had a better season not that he was better at playing hockey (i.e. it does not mean more teams/fans would have picked Messier ahead of Lemieux if they could have drafted one player for the playoff that year).

By "having a better season," voters usually mean he was better at hockey that year. This includes health and durability. The Hart trophy may not specify "a better hockey player when on ice," but it surely doesn't take into consideration who would fans pick. Not to mention, picking Lemieux over Messier in both "fan favorite" and "playoff performance" category is an EXTREMELY hard sell. I don't think Lemieux, even at his Pittsburgh peak (or even upon return), was a match for Messier's popularity in New York.

 

[Sentinel]

There are so many errors here. First, revision would be claiming that Lemieux actually won the Hart, just like revision is claiming that people believed that Messier was the better player in 1992. If anyone wants to chime in and claim that they and many people they knew thought that Messier was a better player than Lemieux was in or around 1992 I'm all ears. Second, it's extremely debatable whether Messier deserved the Hart in 1992. I guess he was rightful in the sense that he didn't rig the awards or anything but by no means is he the obvious choice. Third, the Hart doesn't even attempt to measure who was better by its own definition. Fourth, the Hart is not divinely awarded and by no means is definite proof of who the most valuable player was, better yet who the best player was at the time.

The problem with trophy counting should be pretty clear to anyone with a remote interest in applying thought to hockey in general. What's worse however is using trophy counting to reach a conclusion that the trophy in question doesn't even attempt to assess.

No. "Revisionism" literally means "voters who actually watched hockey 30 years ago were wrong, and I am right." It's NOT "extremely debatable" that Messier deserved the Hart in 1992 in one of the most uncontested Hart victories ever. He WAS the obvious choice to the voters, and Lemieux was not a choice at all. Saying that you disagree with them based on a stat sheet 30 years later consitutes revisionism. Hart is not "divinely awarded" (strawman) but I trust 180 voting members of the PHWA watching hockey in 1991-92 than one random fan of "Last Action Hero" on the internet (no disrespect to you, I love that movie).

 

[K Fleur]

Accepting award voting at strictly face value seems strange. Calling any question to them “revisionism” seems even more strange.

I mean the PHWA couldn’t even be bothered to watch enough of Alex Ovechkin to know what position he was playing in 2013. The guy they also awarded the Hart

 

[Dissonance Jr]

One thing I noticed glancing at some old newspaper clips from 1992 is that a lot of sportswriters kept talking about how Mario Lemieux was playing on an offensive powerhouse and had a lot of help around him. Here's an article from halfway through the season, for example, when Hull was considered a top Hart contender:

HULL RATES GOOD CHANCE TO KEEP THE HART
January 1, 1992, WEDNESDAY
Dave Sell The Washington Post

With the National Hockey League season nearing the halfway mark, the race for the league’s MVP shapes up as an interesting battle between the Blues’ Brett Hull and Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux. One man’s opinion: So far, the Hart Trophy engraver can just copy what he sees on the line above, because Hull is the guy.

Because he won it last season, there’s less fanfare this time, but Hull is almost on a goal-a-game pace. In 37 games, he has 36 goals and 20 assists to lead the Blues in scoring. Some will argue that Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux, with 72 points in just 35 games, should get it. Some will say Hull has his set-up man Adam Oates, with 42 assists. But Lemieux has more offensive help around him. Hull is the only non-Penguin in the top four in scoring.

(I think at this point in the season Joe Mullen was also in the top-4 in scoring, with something like 51 points in his first 41 games, alongside Lemieux and Stevens.)

If so, this seems like a double standard — the voters didn't hold it against Gretzky in the '80s for playing on stacked teams. But I wouldn't be shocked if this perception factored into the final voting a bit. Messier was seen as the guy singlehandedly turning the Rangers into the best team in the league. Lemieux was seen as putting up gaudy numbers on a team built for gaudy numbers.

 

[Sentinel]

Accepting award voting at strictly face value seems strange. Calling any question to them “revisionism” seems even more strange.

I would love to hear your definition of "revisionism."

PHWA couldn’t even be bothered to watch enough of Alex Ovechkin to know what position he was playing in 2013. The guy they also awarded the Hart

It didn't matter what position he played, he was good enough for the Hart. It's not like they awarded him the Norris.

Oh, I see, a Penguins fan who just can't let go...

 

[K Fleur]

I would love to hear your definition of "revisionism."


It didn't matter what position he played, he was good enough for the Hart. It's not like they awarded him the Norris.

Oh, I see, a Penguins fan who just can't let go...

Dude the point was the PHWA voted Ovi as a 1st team AS at RW and a 2nd team AS at LW in 2013. You want to take their opinion as gospel when they clearly weren’t watching that’s your own prerogative.

The last bit of your post is quite funny for someone who can’t make it 4 posts without having to change their pants waxing poetics about Sergei Fedorov. I legit laughed out loud at that, keep that bull shit coming, I think we all could use more chuckles these days.

 

[JackSlater]

So are you talking about the larger perception? The one that says Draisaitl isn’t the best player this year because McDavid exists? Or for another recent example, Malkin wasn’t the best player in 2012 because Crosby exists? Where it’s not enough to just have the better season but a player must out-race the ghost of another player’s recent seasons? That’s fair.

But given that Messier took two of three Pearson Trophies for Most Outstanding Player between 1990 and 1992 to go along with his Most Valuable Player selections means that it wasn’t just the usual Hart narrative that resulted in situations like Rogie Vachon placing above Bobby Orr in his Art Ross year (1975), or Clarke and Esposito splitting the 1st Team and Hart (1973).

Messier played at the same position as Lemieux (and Gretzky) so there were two other awards races with less ambiguous definitions than the Hart where the perception of his season was vetted.

So when you say “very often the Hart winner is not the player that people believe is actually the best player in the NHL” or that it is “something that the trophy in question isn't even meant to assess”, you’re certainly not wrong, but Mark Messier didn’t only win Hart Trophies. By 1992, the Pearson had been operating under its new definition of “Most Outstanding Player” for some time.

I am talking about the how Messier was perceived when I quoted a post that stated that he was in fact considered a better player than Lemieux in 1992, when it's blatantly obvious to anyone with a memory of the time that that is not true. Mario Lemieux was the answer in 1992 if someone asked who the best hockey player in the world was, and I'm pretty confident that fans didn't need to sit around and wait for the Hart to be awarded that summer before giving the answer. We all know that Hall wasn't the best player in hockey in 2018 and that Perry wasn't the best player in hockey in 2011 (and neither was the Lindsay winner) - this isn't a new or controversial idea.

If someone wants to argue that Messier's individual season was better than Lemieux's then that's more palatable, largely due to missed games, but it is a different point that people actually thinking that Messier was a better player than Lemieux in 1992.

See, I think that would have to be considered more revisionist than Sentinel’s suggestion. I’m sure we’ve all disagreed with near-consensus award winners at one point or another, but saying that a player who took a 67-to-2 decision was an “extremely debatable” candidate or not “the obvious choice” seems incorrect.

If I was a big fan of appeals to authority (being generous to the writers) I would be interested in entertaining that line of thinking, but I'm not. Groups can come to a complete consensus and still be very wrong. Whether those writers considered it debatable or obvious is a separate point and it's very unfortunate if people attempt to mindless squash debate by pointing out contemporary thought and leaving it at that.

No. "Revisionism" literally means "voters who actually watched hockey 30 years ago were wrong, and I am right." It's NOT "extremely debatable" that Messier deserved the Hart in 1992 in one of the most uncontested Hart victories ever. He WAS the obvious choice to the voters, and Lemieux was not a choice at all. Saying that you disagree with them based on a stat sheet 30 years later consitutes revisionism. Hart is not "divinely awarded" (strawman) but I trust 180 voting members of the PHWA watching hockey in 1991-92 than one random fan of "Last Action Hero" on the internet (no disrespect to you, I love that movie).

Revisionism literally does not mean that. Again, whether Messier was perceived to be the better player is not even addressed by the conditions under which the Hart is given. You wrongly assume that I am basing this on looking at "a stat sheet 30 years later" and you're not wrong just because I'm posting in 2020 as opposed to 2022.

I think that you really need to look up the word "revisionism" if you want to keep using it. You gave a wrong definition already and have consistently misused it. Stating "I disagree with X" cannot possibly be a case of revisionism, for example, and yet that is your claim. I'm glad that you accept that the Hart is not divinely awarded and thus up for debate, which I suppose leads us all down the path to wrongly defined revisionism. It sort of boggles my mind that anyone can look at Hart trophy results while following hockey and still but a lot of stock in the result.

I've also never seen The Last Action Hero, though I am aware that the main character is a false Jack Slater.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

One thing I noticed glancing at some old newspaper clips from 1992 is that a lot of media people kept talking about how Mario Lemieux was playing on an offensive powerhouse and had a lot of help around him. Here's an article from halfway through the season, for example, when Hull was considered a top Hart contender:



(I think at this point in the season Joe Mullen was also in the top-4 in scoring with something like 51 points in his first 41 games, alongside Lemieux and Stevens.)

Anyway, this seems like a bit of a double standard — the voters didn't hold it against Gretzky in the '80s for playing on an offensive powerhouse. But I wouldn't be surprised if this perception factored into the final voting a bit. Messier was seen as the guy singlehandedly turning the Rangers into the best team in the league. Lemieux was seen as putting up gaudy numbers on a team built for gaudy numbers.

my feeling of the temperature of the room in the '92 season (admittedly, i was very young) is at this point hull was competing with himself too, just like mario and gretzky. anything less than hitting 90 and really making a run at the record wasn't going to get him the hart, not after his 86 year. but the feeling through a lot of the year, at least while oates was still there, is he was keeping pace enough that any week he could go off and clear a goal/game by five or more goals. then it's just a matter of waiting for another outburst.

as for mario, it's funny how narrative worked against him there. again this is me feeling the room as a kid, but as a kid who read way too much about hockey in the daily papers plus magazines when my parents would buy them (had a beckett subscription but THN and hockey digest were more once in a while things). if things had worked out differently, i could definitely see him winning that hart; he was the reigning conn smythe winner, his team was a superteam, and their coach died but heroically he kept them from falling apart... that could definitely have been the story. except of course mario was mario and he complained and badmouthed the league and threatened to retire, as if he had nothing left to prove. which even to an ten year old kid felt stunningly childish. you did it once and you're done? gretzky got gary sutered and he's not even gretzky anymore but he's still playing on and staying in the scoring race and he's done EVERYTHING.

so you can also see how messier becomes a more compelling narrative. everyone talked about his transformative leadership, exactly what mario was said to lack. of course, that narrative changed again a year later, post-radiation. that's when the media came around to him leadering.

but i personally don't remember the stacked team thing really being an issue, at least not in my world.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

as for mario, it's funny how narrative worked against him there. again this is me feeling the room as a kid, but as a kid who read way too much about hockey in the daily papers plus magazines when my parents would buy them (had a beckett subscription but THN and hockey digest were more once in a while things). if things had worked out differently, i could definitely see him winning that hart; he was the reigning conn smythe winner, his team was a superteam, and their coach died but heroically he kept them from falling apart... that could definitely have been the story. except of course mario was mario and he complained and badmouthed the league and threatened to retire, as if he had nothing left to prove. which even to an ten year old kid felt stunningly childish. you did it once and you're done? gretzky got gary sutered and he's not even gretzky anymore but he's still going on and he's done EVERYTHING.

but i personally don't remember the stacked team thing really being an issue, at least not in my world.

That's interesting and you might be onto something. That was the season when Lemieux complained that the NHL was a "garbage league," no? Also, another thing I noticed reading old clips from 1992 was this aside in the NYT about how much the media just plain liked Messier on a personal level.

Can [Messier] win the Hart? He won it in 1990 with Edmonton. This season, he is the leading scorer and captain of the best team in the league so far. Voters for the awards are members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, who know Messier well.

Although such things shouldn't count heavily in award voting, Messier is known and respected around hockey press boxes for being available and articulate in post-game interviews after difficult defeats, when some athletes become surly and withdrawn.

Obviously that alone isn't going to decide the Hart race. But at the margins? When there's not a clear-cut winner? Could be a factor for sure.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Although such things shouldn't count heavily in award voting, Messier is known and respected around hockey press boxes for being available and articulate in post-game interviews after difficult defeats, when some athletes become surly and withdrawn.

haha they could have just said mario instead of "some athletes"

i don't doubt that messier, like hull and gretzky, were well liked because they were available and friendly and in hull's case at least forthcoming and understood the game of saying semi-provocative things. but i think messier in 1990 and 1992 also got this residual trottier bump. as in, in the early 80s i think a lot of ppl wanted to make an argument that trottier was the best player in the world that he was perfect, everything a franchise wanted to build around. only there was this guy scoring 200 pts a year. so giving trophies to messier becomes this way of rectifying that in the years after gretzky is scoring 200 and in the gap between '89 and '93 mario.

 

[quoipourquoi]

We all know that Hall wasn't the best player in hockey in 2018 and that Perry wasn't the best player in hockey in 2011

And neither won the trophy for Most Outstanding Player that Mark Messier did in 1991-92. That’s why the Hart-focused parallel does not work. Same with why the 1975 parallel that Big Phil presented does not work (Bobby Clarke winning the Hart; Bobby Orr winning the Pearson under the old definition) when he originally asked “did anyone in the NHL think Messier was a better player than Lemieux that year?”

To echo what Sentinel said in response to the posed question, yes, and the NHLPA gave Mark Messier his second trophy in three years saying as much. We can shift it from a question of who was the better player in 1991-92 (which based on context of Big Phil’s post is what Sentinel was responding to) to who was considered a better player in a general sense without trying to compare him to players who only won Most Valuable accolades as though that was what happened in 1991-92.

Players who were both Most Valuable and Most Outstanding in isolated seasons during a top talent’s reign would be better examples - hence why I mentioned Draisaitl and Malkin. Two players who like Messier were the best player that year without necessarily being the best player in the general sense. And if in 28 years people suggest that they were extremely debatable selections or not obvious picks while saying it is revisionist to say they were the best player that year, I would similarly disagree while understanding why they might believe Crosby or McDavid to be the correct answers.

 

[scott clam]

Well, actually it does explain it -- it's a very similar situation. I would argue that the 1989 Hart result is much less surprising (and more logical, if not necessarily "correct") than the 1992 one.

So, in 1989, you've got Lemieux with a scoring title on a team that went from 81 points to 87 points (12th of 21 teams to 6th of 21 teams), and you've got Gretzky with 168 points (100 fewer PP opportunities than Lemieux, while we're at it, with the same ES production), on a team that went from 68 points to 91 points (18th of 21 teams to 4th of 21 teams).

While I would personally have voted Lemieux for the '89 Hart, you can't really say a guy got "hosed" when another forward had 168 points and led a team from 4th-worst to 4th-best in one season. Imagine if, in the 2020-21 season, a guy gets 140 points and his team goes from 18th overall to 4th overall. I mean, quite clearly, that's an MVP level season, no 'ifs, and, or buts' about it.

The 1992 Messier thing is considerably more surprising to me -- not so much in that Messier ultimately won the Hart (which I generally agree with, with some reservations), but more so in how completely one-sided his victory was (which Gretzky over Lemieux in '89 was not). The Rangers similarly went from 85 points (8th overall) to 105 points (1st overall) in Messier's first season there. Full marks to Mess for an amazing season, and full value for the Hart . . . it's just that he probably wasn't even one of the top three or four players in the NHL that season, and I'm not even sure he was "better" than Brian Leetch that season (bearing in mind, as you all know, I'm a huge Messier fan). In fact, I kind of doubt he was more valuable to his team on the ice than Leetch was -- as to off the ice, we can only speculate, but it does seem like he motivated the players and brought them together. But it's just such an overwhelming Hart win that you'd expect he'd have out-performed his own 1989-90 season, but to me, he clearly didn't.

Yeah props to Gretzky for elevating the L.A. Kings and having a great season his own self, but Lemieux still checked off every box for an all time-MVP season: Lead the league in goals?check(and by 15 over tbe next guy). Lead the league in assists?double check(tied with Gretzky)Improved his teams record from the previous year?check. Carried them to the playoffs for the first time in a nearly a decade? Double Check. Turned scrubs into 100-point scorers? Check.

Not to mention the fact that he scored 31 more points than the previous years MVP- himself!

Of course I understand why the award went to Gretzky: it was just too good of a storyline. Everyone was pulling for Gretzky after "the trade" that was treated as a national tragedy.

It's a very different case from 1992 when there was no player who had a season that was head and shoulders above everyone else. Lemieux had the numbers as usual, but he missed too many games and his team had a much worse record than the previous year. It wasn't a "historic" season like 1989.

Whereas with Messier it was obvious what an impact he made on his new team. And the Rags finished first in the league, sealing the deal. And of course it's not the fact that he won the award that is so surprising, but that he won by such a huge margin.

But it's still not as weird as '89.

 

[Black Gold Extractor]

i don't doubt that messier, like hull and gretzky, were well liked because they were available and friendly and in hull's case at least forthcoming and understood the game of saying semi-provocative things. but i think messier in 1990 and 1992 also got this residual trottier bump. as in, in the early 80s i think a lot of ppl wanted to make an argument that trottier was the best player in the world that he was perfect, everything a franchise wanted to build around. only there was this guy scoring 200 pts a year. so giving trophies to messier becomes this way of rectifying that in the years after gretzky is scoring 200 and in the gap between '89 and '93 mario.

While I doubt that anyone was specifically thinking about Trottier, I do think that Messier's ascendance in 1989-90 symbolically marked the return of hockey played in a more traditional style for pundits and players alike.

And neither won the trophy for Most Outstanding Player that Mark Messier did in 1991-92. That’s why the Hart-focused parallel does not work. Same with why the 1975 parallel that Big Phil presented does not work (Bobby Clarke winning the Hart; Bobby Orr winning the Pearson under the old definition) when he originally asked “did anyone in the NHL think Messier was a better player than Lemieux that year?”

The winds were shifting, I suppose. Writers began noticing that gaudy numbers didn't necessarily translate to positive game impact.

Thought experiment:

Using completely arbitrary numbers, let's say that Gretzky at his peak was a high-event player who outscored his opponents 6-3 in X minutes. Let's say that Messier at his peak was someone who generally outscored his opponents 3.5-2 in X minutes. Let's say that a defensive center like Bergeron is a low-event player that outscores his opponents 2-1 in X minutes. As such, in X minutes of playing time, Gretzky was +3, Messier was +1.5, and Bergeron is +1.

After half a decade of outscoring opponents 6-3 in X minutes, Gretzky finally meets the wrong side of the age curve. In the last couple of years in Edmonton, he's only outscoring his opponents by 5.5-3.5, so now he's only +2 in X minutes. That's still better than Messier or Bergeron at their peaks (+1.5 and +1 respectively).

Then, "The Trade" happens. He was already in decline, but it becomes obvious in L.A. Gretzky is only outscoring his opponents 5-4 in X minutes now, or +1 in X minutes. Just like that, his positive impact on the game is smaller than Messier, despite still scoring way more. Just like that, three consecutive second-round exits (two against against Messier in Edmonton) happen.

Then, the Suter hit happens. Suddenly, Gretzky is now being outscored by his opponents 4-5 in X minutes while he continues to try playing the same high-event one-way game that he's played since his Edmonton days. And yet, Gretzky is still able to easily contend for the Art Ross (when Lemieux is sidelined). His 4 points/whatever in X minutes is still higher than Messier's 3.5 in X minutes.

What do these completely made-up numbers have to do with anything? Multiply Gretzky's hypothesized scoring in X minutes by 33.33:

6 x 33.33 = 200 (1981-86)
5.5 x 33.33 = 183 (1986-88)
5 x 33.33 = 167 (1988-91)
4 x 33.33 = 133 (1991-94)

That's actually pretty close to Gretzky's actual scoring levels (and actual game impact) at various points in his career, and so my narrative is not completely bunk. Messier's 3.5 points/whatever in X minutes? Multiply that by 33.33 and you get 117, which is pretty close to his scoring at that period of time. The scary part is the fact that despite barely moving the needle from 5.5-3.5 to 5-4, Gretzky goes from being an incredible out-scorer to a more typical one.

In the regular season of 1991-92, Lemieux was very much of the "outscore his opponents 5-4" variety. In 80% of games available, Lemieux would still easily win the Art Ross (80% x 5 = 4 x 33.33 = 133)... but overall versus Messier? I don't think that it's completely out of the blue that people might consider Messier better.

It was easy enough for the players to notice as well. In the regular season, the Penguins were just another team despite their otherworldly-talented center. Who didn't win nearly as often as the Oilers once did. Who also didn't score as much as Gretzky did (except for what could have been considered a fluke season where even Bernie Nicholls scored a bunch).

Messier, though, was showing that he could keep winning wherever he went. Also, players were likely a whole lot more bruised after playing against him, so they would likely remember him as a force to be reckoned with. A winning force to be reckoned with.

(Although I suppose it is fair to note that we don't know the breakdown of player voting, so maybe it was really close?)

 

[JackSlater]

And neither won the trophy for Most Outstanding Player that Mark Messier did in 1991-92. That’s why the Hart-focused parallel does not work. Same with why the 1975 parallel that Big Phil presented does not work (Bobby Clarke winning the Hart; Bobby Orr winning the Pearson under the old definition) when he originally asked “did anyone in the NHL think Messier was a better player than Lemieux that year?”

To echo what Sentinel said in response to the posed question, yes, and the NHLPA gave Mark Messier his second trophy in three years saying as much. We can shift it from a question of who was the better player in 1991-92 (which based on context of Big Phil’s post is what Sentinel was responding to) to who was considered a better player in a general sense without trying to compare him to players who only won Most Valuable accolades as though that was what happened in 1991-92.

Players who were both Most Valuable and Most Outstanding in isolated seasons during a top talent’s reign would be better examples - hence why I mentioned Draisaitl and Malkin. Two players who like Messier were the best player that year without necessarily being the best player in the general sense. And if in 28 years people suggest that they were extremely debatable selections or not obvious picks while saying it is revisionist to say they were the best player that year, I would similarly disagree while understanding why they might believe Crosby or McDavid to be the correct answers.

Good for you, but the reasoning provided will still be very poor. Was Messier considered a better player than Lemieux in 1992? I'm pretty sure that you were around and cognizant at the time and know that answer. If you want to claim that Messier had the better season you can, but better season doesn't mean better player. You can argue that Messier was the best choice for the Hart and that's fine, but rightful Hart winner isn't the same as best player. I'm speaking in the sense of that season and the general sense as well. There is always a player who is best and you generally expect that awards are going to break that way, but it doesn't always happen for a variety of reasons including health (or just context in general) and the fallibility of voters.

I'll add that pointing to voting and suggesting that something can't be debatable because it was voted with a large majority at the time is incredibly weak to the point of rendering discussion pointless. Many Hart winning seasons are very debatable, just like many Lindsay seasons (regardless of whether they happen in the same year like Messier in 92 or or Lindros in 95 or whoever else) or Best Picture winning movies or Nobel prizes or political elections or teen choice awards or anything else that is voted on. Messier can be the rightful winner in 1992 and it can still be very debatable, and it is, because there are other seasons from that year that can lay claim to being superior than Messier's own season. This isn't even the point that I was initially making but I really struggle to accept that someone is going to claim that a lot of people voting for something in the past renders us unable to debate it today.

 

[quoipourquoi]

You can argue that Messier was the best choice for the Hart and that's fine, but rightful Hart winner isn't the same as best player.

Not sure how many times it can be emphasized that he was awarded the Pearson for Most Outstanding Player and took the 1st Team selection as well (though presumably by smaller margins than his Hart win), but I’ll emphasize it again that he was awarded over Mario Lemieux for being the best player/Center.

I'll add that pointing to voting and suggesting that something can't be debatable because it was voted with a large majority at the time is incredibly weak to the point of rendering discussion pointless.

It was more about pointing out the humor in you stating Sentinel was revisionist for saying that Messier, a player awarded a Most Outstanding Player award in 1992, was the best player that year while asserting that a 67-to-2 vote was “extremely debatable” - as though your extreme minority position on the Hart vote was somehow more valid and of-the-moment than Sentinel’s opinion that Messier was the “better player than Lemieux that year” (Big Phil’s exact question).

Like, I don’t understand why we wouldn’t bring up the contemporary vote totals when your response was that Sentinel was “promoting revisionism”. Especially when you didn’t say Messier’s candidacy for the Hart Trophy was debatable or perhaps debatable but rather extremely debatable and not obvious.

The only thing more obvious than Messier’s 1992 Hart Trophy win is that a comment like that is going to prompt us to bring the receipts.

 

[scott clam]

Good for you, but the reasoning provided will still be very poor. Was Messier considered a better player than Lemieux in 1992? I'm pretty sure that you were around and cognizant at the time and know that answer. If you want to claim that Messier had the better season you can, but better season doesn't mean better player. You can argue that Messier was the best choice for the Hart and that's fine, but rightful Hart winner isn't the same as best player. I'm speaking in the sense of that season and the general sense as well. There is always a player who is best and you generally expect that awards are going to break that way, but it doesn't always happen for a variety of reasons including health (or just context in general) and the fallibility of voters.

I'll add that pointing to voting and suggesting that something can't be debatable because it was voted with a large majority at the time is incredibly weak to the point of rendering discussion pointless. Many Hart winning seasons are very debatable, just like many Lindsay seasons (regardless of whether they happen in the same year like Messier in 92 or or Lindros in 95 or whoever else) or Best Picture winning movies or Nobel prizes or political elections or teen choice awards or anything else that is voted on. Messier can be the rightful winner in 1992 and it can still be very debatable, and it is, because there are other seasons from that year that can lay claim to being superior than Messier's own season. This isn't even the point that I was initially making but I really struggle to accept that someone is going to claim that a lot of people voting for something in the past renders us unable to debate it today.

it also depends on what people mean by a "better season" as well. From a team standpoint Messier has the better season, primarily because he was there for the whole thing(I think he might have missed one game). And because he was instrumental in his team achieving the best record in the league.

From an individual standpoint Lemieux is easily the best player in the league that year, and has the best season statistically. And really, it's not even close. But he still missed almost a quarter of the regular season, and his team record was disapointing.

 

[The Panther]

Yes, there is obviously a giant difference between "better season" and "best player at that moment in time". And the Hart trophy isn't for either of those things.