Should NHL awards and All-Star selections factor in the Playoffs?

[Jetsfan79]

This probably won’t be a popular opinion, but to me, it makes logical sense. It will likely never happen because the sports world as a whole doesn’t operate this way—but I think it should.

In my opinion, all player awards and All-Star selections should be based on the entire season, not just the regular season. Why? Ask yourself this: what is the purpose of awards?

The answer is to recognize and reward people for exemplary performance. So why are most awards based only on the regular season? The common argument is that the regular season makes up the bulk of the schedule, which is true—but to me, that’s like giving out academic awards while ignoring the final exams. It just doesn’t make sense.

In a way, every NHL regular-season award should be viewed similarly to the Presidents' Trophy. And we all know how much less weight that holds compared to the Stanley Cup.

Now, we could still have separate awards for the playoffs and the regular season, but I think the best approach would be a weighted system that factors in both the long, grueling regular season and the playoffs together.

The same logic applies to All-Star selections. Instead of picking All-Stars at the halfway point, why not wait until the end of the playoffs and hold the All-Star Game either before the next season or midway through the following season? Right now, if someone tells me a player was a 1987 All-Star, all that really means is they had a great first half of that season. From a historical perspective, does that really make sense?

I get that logistics, tradition, and familiarity would likely prevent this from ever happening, but to me, it just makes too much sense.

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[Dr Jan Itor]

No, but they could always make playoff versions of all of the bigger awards, and not just the MVP.

 

[Incognito]

No. The best players on the best teams would end up winning a disproportionate amount of the time (even more than they already do), since the odds of receiving an award would be stacked in favour of players on elite teams that go deeper into the playoffs. And deserving players on weaker teams would routinely get robbed through no fault of their own.

 

[Regal]

I wouldn’t be opposed to an end of year MVP after the other awards I guess, but I don’t think we should based current awards on the playoffs. Still, it’s a bit like the arguments for adding another trophy for defensemen in that you’re going to end up with a lot of overlapping winners

 

[Toby91ca]

The answer is to recognize and reward people for exemplary performance. So why are most awards based only on the regular season? The common argument is that the regular season makes up the bulk of the schedule, which is true—but to me, that’s like giving out academic awards while ignoring the final exams. It just doesn’t make sense.

That absolutely isn't the reason and the analogy to academic awards while ignoring final exams doesn't make sense....do half the students skip final exams?

The reason "individual awards" are based on regular season is because is the only way each individual player is given an equal opportunity to compete. How can you assess a player on the weakest team vs. a player on the best team in the league?

Even if you tried to rationalize why it makes sense, it would still default to guys going deep in the playoffs because of recency and more constant eyeballs on the guy.

 

[Voight]

No, but they could always make playoff versions of all of the bigger awards, and not just the MVP.

I'd be against it. I thought it was really dumb when the NBA introduced MVPs for the conference finals. MLB did it because playoffs were only two rounds at the time (conference finals and championship)

 

[LPHabsFan]

The whole point is that these awards are based on the expectation that it's an even playing field (82 games). For the same reason that people get discounted for getting injured and not playing a full year, a player shouldn't get extra credit because his team happened to play an extra X number of games.

There's also a larger element of recency bias if you include the playoffs, which is why the voting on those things happens after the season is done and not closer to the awards date.

This is also why they created the Conne Smythe, but I also wouldn't be opposed to them having "lesser" playoff awards like the playoff equivalent of a Vezina/Norris. Maybe also a Ted Lindsay Award equivalent?

 

[Golden_Jet]

No, would never happen