Strange trophy voting through NHL history

[Michael Farkas]

Too many people that cover the game don't know it that well anyhow...to be fair, it's a lot of ground to cover these days with 31 teams. Games go from 7 pm to 1 am ET every night. Not to make excuses, because I'm first to criticize this nonsense. But like any other job, if you're not into it, you're not into it and as such, results get wonky...

 

[blood gin]

It baffles me how lightly voters take the voting. Considering it's potentially millions of dollars worth of money going one way depending on their votes. I often get the feeling that some voters simply scroll down nhl.com stats and throw their votes in.

And on top of that sometimes votes are very agenda driven

 

[Plural]

Too many people that cover the game don't know it that well anyhow...to be fair, it's a lot of ground to cover these days with 31 teams. Games go from 7 pm to 1 am ET every night. Not to make excuses, because I'm first to criticize this nonsense. But like any other job, if you're not into it, you're not into it and as such, results get wonky...

Well, sure. I think it's just job poorly done. Just think about having a careee year and missing out on a bonus worth north of a million cause few slackers couldn't be bothered to take five minutes to see if you're a LW or a RW.

 

[Brodeur]

It baffles me how lightly voters take the voting. Considering it's potentially millions of dollars worth of money going one way depending on their votes. I often get the feeling that some voters simply scroll down nhl.com stats and throw their votes in.

I think that's why they voted to make the voting public this year. I can only imagine the 90% of the writers who take the time to cast their votes being very embarrassed by the other 10%. Even this year we saw a handful of ballots which weren't counted due to certain writers not knowing the rules:

One voter submitted an ineligible Trophy vote, nullifying his trophy voting: Jeff Hamilton (Winnipeg Free Press).

Twelve voters submitted ineligible All-Star team votes, nullifying their All-Star selections: Kristen Anderson (Calgary Herald), Steve Dryden (TSN), Jesse Granger (Las Vegas Sun), Jeff Hamilton (Winnipeg Free Press), Mike Heika (Dallas Morning News), Pat Hickey (Montreal Gazette), Renaud Lavoie (TVA), Alison Lukan (The Athletic), Joe McDonald (The Athletic), Kevin McGran (Toronto Star), Charlie O’Connor (The Athletic), Adam Vingan (The Tennessean).

Four voters submitted ineligible All-Rookie team votes, nullifying their All-Rookie selections: John Dietz (Arlington Daily Herald), Alison Lukan (The Athletic), Mark Whicker (Orange County Register), Josh Yohe (The Athletic).

 

[DJ Man]

As a young fan, I used to scan the voting lists, and I noted that in several years, Jacques Plante would get a few votes for the Lady Byng trophy.

Can't recall finding any other goalkeepers there, so it seems that most voters didn't regard them as eligible or voteworthy.

I wouldn't think that Plante was especially well-behaved for a goalie: he was a showboat (though he did back it all up with his play) and usually complaining about something. Good grief, he claimed he was allergic to the city of Toronto, which must have endeared him to those one-sixth of the voters. You'd think that someone humble, like Johnny Bower, would get more support.

So how to account for this? Did his supreme confidence and French accent give him some aura of Maurice Chevalier charm?

(If the players voted rather than the writers, I'd just suppose that he voted for himself every year.)

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Well, sure. I think it's just job poorly done. Just think about having a careee year and missing out on a bonus worth north of a million cause few slackers couldn't be bothered to take five minutes to see if you're a LW or a RW.

I think the league is at fault in many cases.

Ovechkin played both LW and RW in 2012-13. Before the vote the NHL should have decided which position he was eligible for.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

Somebody really had a thing for Terry Ruskowski in 85-86... he had one 1st place vote for Selke (maybe reasonable that he gets a vote, but he received no other votes that year or any other), one 3rd place vote for All-Star at LW (okay, 63 points, team captain, not entirely unthinkable) and... inexplicably... get this... one 1st place Byng vote in a year he had 162 PIM! Understand, this is a guy who had 1354 career PIM in 629 games. He was a gritty grinding type who would sometimes drop the gloves, generally not the kind of guy getting Byng votes.

I dunno, maybe this was some Penguins writer who thought that Ruskowski was underrated & unnoticed & was beating the drums for some recognition for the veteran playing alongside & being overshadowed by the sophomore sensation Lemieux. It's possible he was the Pens' nominee for the Masterton that year, too (can't find Masterton nominee/voting info). I can't understand for the life of me what the thinking was behind the Byng vote, it really is an outlier.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

An apparent Kevin Dineen fan gave the Whalers winger 3rd place Hart votes two years in a row (85-86, 86-87).

 

[The Panther]

An apparent Kevin Dineen fan gave the Whalers winger 3rd place Hart votes two years in a row (85-86, 86-87).

Whoa... what did I just read?

1985-86 was only Dineen's 2nd NHL season, and he missed 23 games, putting up 68 points, finishing fourth in team scoring on a club that was only 4 games over .500. His third place Hart vote means that some genius decided he was more valuable to his team than one of Gretzky, Coffey, Lemieux, etc. (not to mention his own teammate, Ron Francis).

In 1986-87, at least he played more-or-less the full season and hit 40 goals, while the Whalers had their only 1st place finish in the Adams (albeit barely), but Dineen was still well behind Francis in team scoring and was out of the top-20 NHL scorers.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

The only thing I can think of is that Dineen was considered a character player, but it is surprising that somebody would credit him for being so important to his team, as one could make arguments that Ron Francis, Mike Liut & even Ulf Samuelsson were more valuable to the team at the time.

 

[Plural]

I think the league is at fault in many cases.

Ovechkin played both LW and RW in 2012-13. Before the vote the NHL should have decided which position he was eligible for.

I think they did. Problem was that they issued the information too late. If my memory serves.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

The only thing I can think of is that Dineen was considered a character player, but it is surprising that somebody would credit him for being so important to his team, as one could make arguments that Ron Francis, Mike Liut & even Ulf Samuelsson were more valuable to the team at the time.

Whalers fans hadn't had a guy that had a motor like Dineen before. He was the little man with the big shot that was a fiesty, dirty pita. He seemed to light a fire for the often disinterested Whale.

In March of 1986, my hated Bruins were in town. Dineen got in a fight with Steve Kasper in the first period. Mike Milbury sought revenge in the 2nd period. Dineen KOed Milbury with one punch. Out cold. In that moment the Whalers no longer had to look up at the Bruins looking down their collective noses at them. The Whale was instantly a foot taller as a team.

The playoffs were made. The Whalers swept Quebec. They took the eventual Cup champion Habs to OT of Game 7. Dineen led the team in scoring. The feel at the time was that Dineen was indeed their most valuable player.

 

[iamjs]

Johan Hedberg received a 4th place Lady Byng vote in 2009-10, placing him higher in the voting than former two-time Byng winner Paul Kariya.

2009-10 NHL Awards Voting | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[reckoning]

A few of my favorites:


- In Bobby Orr's record-breaking 70-71 season, one writer gave him a second-place Norris vote, giving the first-place spot to somebody else. What more would Orr have to have done to impress this guy?

- In 75-76 Marcel Dionne finished first in the All-Star voting at centre, despite playing at right wing for the entire season. He finished 3rd in the RW voting, presumably on votes from West Coast writers who actually saw him play often.

- Ivan Boldirev got a 2nd-place vote for the Hart in 77-78. I can't begin to imagine why.

- Sean Burke received a 3rd-place vote for the Hart in 87-88, despite only appearing in 13 games. He joined the Devils after the Olympics, and the Devils went on a tear down the stretch to make the playoffs. Still, it's ridiculous to give a Hart vote to somebody who only played about a month

- In 88-89, not only did Lemieux not win the Hart, but two writers didn't even have him among their top three choices. Aside from Gretzky and Yzerman, the only other players to receive votes were Roy, Mullen and Chelios. Those three players had fine years, but I don't understand how they'd get rated ahead of Lemieux's 199 point season.

- Rick Bowness received a 3rd-place vote for the Adams in 92-93. I'm not saying that it was his fault Ottawa lost 70 games that season, but he didn't do anything to warrant a coach of the year vote. It not like the team exceeded the low expectations everyone had.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Maybe the 1970-71 first place Norris vote went to the defenceman that stopped Orr on a rush?

 

[quoipourquoi]

- In 88-89, not only did Lemieux not win the Hart, but two writers didn't even have him among their top three choices. Aside from Gretzky and Yzerman, the only other players to receive votes were Roy, Mullen and Chelios. Those three players had fine years, but I don't understand how they'd get rated ahead of Lemieux's 199 point season.

Their teams won their Conferences by 23 and 26 points.

 

[The Panther]

Maybe the 1970-71 first place Norris vote went to the defenceman that stopped Orr on a rush?

Whoever he was, his plus/minus was at best 1/4 as good as Orr's...

If it's true that Mario was left off a couple of ballots, that is bizarre in the extreme. It's like in 1988 the media narrative was "Let's-All-Vote-Mario-even-though-his-team-isn't-very-good!", and then in 1989, a few writers were like, "Let's not vote for Mario even though he's better than last year!". My theory on this is that after '88 some writers were burned when the Pens missed the playoffs on the last (next to last?) game of the season, and in '89 they were going to get burned again, so they thought it safer to vote players whose teams were clearly playoff bound (Chelios, Roy... Mullen? That's a head scratcher).

 

[alko]

Zdeno Chara: 1 point in Lady Byng for 5th place in 09/10 season. Hm, for a D , that had 87 PM in season?

Anton Volchenkov: 1 point in Norris Trophy race.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

A few of my favorites:


- In Bobby Orr's record-breaking 70-71 season, one writer gave him a second-place Norris vote, giving the first-place spot to somebody else. What more would Orr have to have done to impress this guy?

- In 75-76 Marcel Dionne finished first in the All-Star voting at centre, despite playing at right wing for the entire season. He finished 3rd in the RW voting, presumably on votes from West Coast writers who actually saw him play often.

- Ivan Boldirev got a 2nd-place vote for the Hart in 77-78. I can't begin to imagine why.

- Sean Burke received a 3rd-place vote for the Hart in 87-88, despite only appearing in 13 games. He joined the Devils after the Olympics, and the Devils went on a tear down the stretch to make the playoffs. Still, it's ridiculous to give a Hart vote to somebody who only played about a month

- In 88-89, not only did Lemieux not win the Hart, but two writers didn't even have him among their top three choices. Aside from Gretzky and Yzerman, the only other players to receive votes were Roy, Mullen and Chelios. Those three players had fine years, but I don't understand how they'd get rated ahead of Lemieux's 199 point season.


- Rick Bowness received a 3rd-place vote for the Adams in 92-93. I'm not saying that it was his fault Ottawa lost 70 games that season, but he didn't do anything to warrant a coach of the year vote. It not like the team exceeded the low expectations everyone had.

In 75-76 Dionne received no votes. Perhaps you meant 76-77.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Dan Girardi finishing 6th in the 2012 Norris Voting including 2 1st place votes.

 

[Voight]

Brad Richards had a 4th place Selke finish as a rookie - although I believe its cause a writer screwed up their ballot ?

 

[Voight]

Dan Girardi finishing 6th in the 2012 Norris Voting including 2 1st place votes.

Tp be fair that was his best season where people were going crazy about him and blocking shots was the newest fad hockey people obsessed about.

That was the prime WCE time, right? Naslund-BMo-Bert, right? Wasn't that the best line in the league that year...? I didn't realize they weren't even close...

Statistically they were better the next season when they all had career highs and Nazzy won the Pearson.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Brad Richards had a 4th place Selke finish as a rookie - although I believe its cause a writer screwed up their ballot ?

Are you getting that from hockey-reference.com? That's a long-standing error - those votes were for Mike Ricci, not Brad Richards.

 

[blogofmike]

Too many people that cover the game don't know it that well anyhow...to be fair, it's a lot of ground to cover these days with 31 teams. Games go from 7 pm to 1 am ET every night. Not to make excuses, because I'm first to criticize this nonsense. But like any other job, if you're not into it, you're not into it and as such, results get wonky...

Were the O6 guys any better at voting? Without huge TV coverage, voters mostly saw road games. With 1st half and 2nd half voting that could lead to people being amazed that Al Rollins was winning just as much as the guys on good teams:

NHL.com - Stats

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Brad Richards had a 4th place Selke finish as a rookie - although I believe its cause a writer screwed up their ballot ?

No, the cause is a transcription error on hockey-reference.com. Mike Ricci finished 4th in Selke voting in 2000-01, as you can see on hfboard's data, which is more accurate, but less user friendly.

Edit: Already beaten to it