The downfall of Taylor Hall

Nogatco Rd

Pierre-Luc Dubas
Apr 3, 2021
2,969
5,541
So the hart is for the mvp of a single team? In 32 team league?

That's literally what it is.

It isn't a 'best player in the league' trophy. It's a 'most valuable player' trophy. Who are you valuable to? Is McDavid valuable to the Islanders? Or the Leafs? Of course not. Some people like to interpret the trophy to mean, 'best player in the league." But that's not technically what it is.

So the actual wording of the trophy intentionally opens up grey areas where someone may not be as good as another player, but could indeed be more valuable to their team than the other player was to theirs.

Only way it could be 'most valuable to the league' is if it was a $$$ related trophy. As in, more McDavid/Hall/whoever merchandise was sold, and more arenas were filled to capacity when this player played there than any other.

You can make a strong case that there were better players than Hall that year, but convincing people that those players meant more to their team than Hall did to the Devils would be much tougher.
MVP is technically supposed to go to the player most valuable to their team, yes, but I’m not sure that’s how it’s actually decided each year.

In the same way the “best defenseman” doesn’t always win the Norris.
 
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Sky04

Registered User
Jan 8, 2009
29,681
19,015
The season he won Hart he had 93 points in 76 games, tied 6th in the league. Hischier was 2nd in team scoring with 52 points in 82 games. That's just insane.

Meh, Kucherov had a 54 point gap on the next closest Lightning player last season, Bure's 55 point gap to his next closest teammates is way more insane, 92 to 37 points. Paul Kariya might have the most impressive one given he was only 21 years old at the time and a 64 point gap on his next closest teammate.
 
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Grifter3511

Registered User
Nov 3, 2009
2,557
2,800
MVP is technically supposed to go to the player most valuable to their team, yes, but I’m not sure that’s how it’s actually decided each year.

In the same way the “best defenseman” doesn’t always win the Norris.
I agree 100%. I think there's a pretty good amount of room for interpretation.
 

banks

Only got 3 of 16.
Aug 29, 2019
3,860
5,678
I know it's been mentioned in the thread a bit already, but his performance with Buffalo was a disgrace. I've never seen a hockey player quit on a team as much as he did in 2020. Only 2 (two!) goals in 39 games. And he looked worse than that number suggests.

He was abysmal for them, doing nothing to stop a 18 game losing streak. He was atrocious. Not just snakebit, playing hurt, or adjusting to a new team. No, this was downright lazy quitting. He was invisible at his best. That awful performance just about cancels out his Hart season, in my opinion. He clearly never wanted to play there, and just took the money they offered and planned to get traded later.

Here's some of his Sabres teammates that scored more goals in less games than Hall that season: Anders Bjork, Curtis Lazar, Toby Rieder, Arttu Routsalainen, Rasmus Asplund. How bad do you have to be as a premiere scoring forward when you're getting out produced by that group??
 

AfroThunder396

[citation needed]
Jan 8, 2006
39,639
25,225
Miami, FL
He hasn't been the same since his knee injury in early 2018-2019. His game was built around dominating the neural zone with his speed, and once he lost a step he turned into a totally different player.

I understand why he wanted out of NJ after that disastrous start in 2019-2020, but the grass isn't always greener on the other side. He followed that up with ARI and BUF, two places he clearly didn't want to be. He seemed happy and effective in Boston, but now in CHI he once again has nothing to play for and an aging body that's failing him.
 

Marlowe Syn

R-O-C-K-F-O-R-D
Sep 2, 2008
2,303
215
DeepSouth of PNW
So the hart is for the mvp of a single team? In 32 team league?
No it goes to the player that was the biggest difference maker for his teamst. It's a little wonky over traditional sports MVP awards, but there it is. I went to Wiki before I replied just to verify to make sure I was thinking right?. Hence the copy and paste. I was not being snarky at all in my post, but upon re-reading I see where it could be thought otherwise. I had no jerk intents in my reply.
 
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TheDawnOfANewTage

Dahlin, it’ll all be fine
Dec 17, 2018
12,999
19,188
He hasn't been the same since his knee injury in early 2018-2019. His game was built around dominating the neural zone with his speed, and once he lost a step he turned into a totally different player.

I understand why he wanted out of NJ after that disastrous start in 2019-2020, but the grass isn't always greener on the other side. He followed that up with ARI and BUF, two places he clearly didn't want to be. He seemed happy and effective in Boston, but now in CHI he once again has nothing to play for and an aging body that's failing him.

This. When he won the Hart he was just beating everyone in transition. Other skills were above average, but the skating made it all work.

He’s not particularly good at anything else, can look absolutely lost if not in the right spot, and hasn’t been the most likable guy in the past, so meh. Interesting career though.
 

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