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The NHL continuously turning the Conn Smythe into a lifetime achievement award is getting ridiculous

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Slayer97

Slayer97

Registered User
Dec 20, 2025
1,322
1,925
Toronto, ON
First of all, congratulations to the Hurricanes and their fans. Well-deserved title as they were clearly the better team for majority of the series, and they finally were able to clamp down and shut out the Knights flying offence. Great performances by Bussi and Hall (who I'm very happy for)

That being said... what the hell is the NHL doing?

Jordan Staal wins the Conn Smythe at 37 years old and we’re all supposed to pretend this is normal? No disrespect to Staal. Good player. Great captain. Great Final. But the Conn Smythe is supposed to go to the playoff MVP, not the guy with the best story. It feels like the voters saw a 37-year-old captain finally lifting the Cup and couldn’t resist the narrative. Marner was flat out robbed and I'm getting a little tired of the NHL continuously screwing this up.

The same thing happened in 2016. Crosby got the trophy while guys like Kessel/Murray/Couture had a very legitimate argument for being the best playoff performer.

At some point we need to decide what this award is supposed to be.

Is it:
  • A) The best player over four rounds?
  • B) The player attached to the best story?
  • C) Best player in the Finals?
Even if you didn't think Marner didn't deserve it, there is no way Staal deserved it for the entirety of the playoffs. If that's the case, make a SCF MVP award.

Things like this make the CS become a joke of an award and it seems like whoever has the best narrative/story will win it. This may be the absolute worst Conn Smythe winner... possibly ever.
 
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This always happens with awards voted on, this is another in a long line of Good story wins, that don't pass the sniff test.

Been this way for about 15yrs now. Isn't going to change as long as press are involved.
 
Slayer97 said:
First of all, congratulations to the Hurricanes and their fans. Well-deserved title as they were clearly the better team for majority of the series, and they finally were able to clamp down and shut out the Knights flying offence. Great performances by Bussi and Hall (who I'm very happy for)

That being said... what the hell is the NHL doing?

Jordan Staal wins the Conn Smythe at 37 years old and we’re all supposed to pretend this is normal? No disrespect to Staal. Great player. Great captain. Great Final. But the Conn Smythe is supposed to go to the playoff MVP, not the guy with the best story. It feels like the voters saw a 37-year-old captain finally lifting the Cup and couldn’t resist the narrative. Marner was flat out robbed and I'm getting a little tired of the NHL continuously screwing this up.

The same thing happened in 2016. Crosby got the trophy while guys like Kessel/Murray/Couture had a very legitimate argument for being the best playoff performer.

At some point we need to decide what this award is supposed to be.

Is it:
  • A) The best player over four rounds?
  • B) The player attached to the best story?
Even if you didn't think Marner didn't deserve it, there is no way Staal deserved it for the entirety of the playoffs. If that's the case, make a SCF MVP award.

Things like this make the CS become a joke of an award.
Click to expand...

Kessel and Murray and Couture had absolutely zero legitimate arguments in 2016. Plenty of sidecars and casuals were obsessed with the Kessel story but it was not a Smythe run beyond that.

2016 was Sid, or Letangs to win that year. In 2017 it was basically Sid/Malkin/Guentzel. If not Sid, I would have gone Letang in 16 and Malkin in 17. Sid had plenty of argument and being a captain will always count for something.

You're seemingly focusing entirely on points and highlights. Kessel had a lot of fun (so did we, as fans) on that THIRD line. Big reason he looked a lot different in Pittsburgh than in Toronto.

Staal was very deserving.
 
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Slayer97 said:
First of all, congratulations to the Hurricanes and their fans. Well-deserved title as they were clearly the better team for majority of the series, and they finally were able to clamp down and shut out the Knights flying offence. Great performances by Bussi and Hall (who I'm very happy for)

That being said... what the hell is the NHL doing?

Jordan Staal wins the Conn Smythe at 37 years old and we’re all supposed to pretend this is normal? No disrespect to Staal. Good player. Great captain. Great Final. But the Conn Smythe is supposed to go to the playoff MVP, not the guy with the best story. It feels like the voters saw a 37-year-old captain finally lifting the Cup and couldn’t resist the narrative. Marner was flat out robbed and I'm getting a little tired of the NHL continuously screwing this up.

The same thing happened in 2016. Crosby got the trophy while guys like Kessel/Murray/Couture had a very legitimate argument for being the best playoff performer.

At some point we need to decide what this award is supposed to be.

Is it:
  • A) The best player over four rounds?
  • B) The player attached to the best story?
  • C) Best player in the Finals?
Even if you didn't think Marner didn't deserve it, there is no way Staal deserved it for the entirety of the playoffs. If that's the case, make a SCF MVP award.

Things like this make the CS become a joke of an award and it seems like whoever has the best narrative/story will win it. This may be the absolute worst Conn Smythe winner... possibly ever.
Click to expand...
Marner didn’t win the cup. Don’t try and pretend he had a playoff run like McDavid had.
 
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molon labe said:
Kessel and Murray and Couture had absolutely zero legitimate arguments in 2016. Plenty of sidecars and casuals were obsessed with the Kessel story but it was not a Smythe run beyond that.

2016 was Sid, or Letangs to win that year. In 2017 it was basically Sid/Malkin/Guentzel. If not Sid, I would have gone Letang in 16 and Malkin in 17. Sid had plenty of argument and being a captain will always count for something.

You're seemingly focusing entirely on points and highlights. Kessel had a lot of fun (so did we, as fans) on that THIRD line. Big reason he looked a lot different in Pittsburgh than in Toronto.

Staal was very deserving.
Click to expand...
The point is there are continuously many deserving players more so than the winners who underperform relative to their peers and we just hand out the CS for legacy purposes/cause it sounds cute

Side note: Crosby beat Kessel 63-60 in voting, clearly the voters believed he had an argument. But this is so, so much worse
 
Great story and a nice moment for Jordan but the stated criteria for this award is "most valuable player for his team" during the playoffs as a whole, not just the Finals. If you look at the playoffs in their entirety, there's really no justification for Staal over any of Carolina's HSB line, especially not Blake.
 
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Slayer97 said:
The point is there are continuously many deserving players more so than the winners who underperform relative to their peers and we just hand out the CS for legacy purposes/cause it sounds cute
Click to expand...

How did any of them underperform? In what way? Less goals? Without much context you seem to be viewing things in a vacuum.

Staal under-performed here? That's quite a take. Objectively the dude kinda dominated.
 
IIRC, the league tries to divide the voting block with 1/3 of writers who have covered one team all 4 rounds, 1/3 who have covered the other team throughout the playoffs, 1/3 national writers. When you have 2/3 of the voting block basically coming in at the Final that is going to get weighted more along with recently bias.

I would have voted Hall or Stankoven respectively as they were the points and goals leaders for the Hurricanes. I don’t ever think it should go to a losing team player as the award is meant to be part of the championship celebration.
 
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molon labe said:
How did any of them underperform? In what way? Less goals? Without much context you seem to be viewing things in a vacuum.

Staal under-performed here? That's quite a take. Objectively the dude kinda dominated.
Click to expand...
Objectively, he had zero argument against any of the HSB line and possibly Freddy. It's for the entire run. I'm sorry but even the biggest Canes fans know this was a robbery of the highest order

They underperformed relative to the expectations set for them
 
I mean, it was just one of those years where the winning team won as a team and no one stood head-and-shoulders above the rest or carried the team. It was similar to last year in that regard.

I don't think it would have made sense to give it to Marner after his team lost in six (I don't think a player on a losing team has ever gotten the award when his team hasn't at least gotten to a G7 in the SCF) and he wasn't particularly good in the last couple of games. Tonight in particular, he had a rather rough game as his team was shut out on home ice in a Cup-clinching game.

Staal is a rather weak winner considering his work in the first three rounds, but someone like Blake, Ehlers, Hall or Stankoven wouldn't have been an all-time great Conn Smythe winner, either.
 
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HavingACow4Cowan said:
I mean, it was just one of those years where the winning team won as a team and no one stood head-and-shoulders above the rest or carried the team. It was similar to last year in that regard.

I don't think it would have made sense to give it to Marner after his team lost in six (I don't think a player on a losing team has ever gotten the award when his team hasn't at least gotten to a G7 in the SCF) and he wasn't particularly good in the last couple of games. Tonight in particular, he had a rather rough game as his team was shut out on home ice in a Cup-clinching game.

Staal is a rather weak winner considering his work in the first three rounds, but someone like Blake, Ehlers, Hall or Stankoven wouldn't have been an all-time great Conn Smythe winner, either.
Click to expand...
Marner being shut out today because Eichel can't hit an open net shouldn't be on him, especially after he made a great play to keep possession.

Literally any of those names would be a much better pick, a more defensible pick than Staal
 
You can't give it to Marner given the loss and the past few games, if it was game 7 close loss and Marner kept on trucking until game 5 rather than game 3 then sure, maybe (although I don't like members of the losing team winning it anyway)

Evaluations should be less superficial than just counting stats, I liked Hall over Staal and maybe Stankoven and Slavin deserved some love too but how can you argue Staal with big moments and the stuff he does that doesn't show up on the scoresheet
 
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The Symthe is a defacto finals MVP award. If it wasn’t then in theory someone could score 40 points in the first 3 rounds, have their team eliminated in the conference finals and still be the MVP.
 
HavingACow4Cowan said:
I mean, it was just one of those years where the winning team won as a team and no one stood head-and-shoulders above the rest or carried the team. It was similar to last year in that regard.

I don't think it would have made sense to give it to Marner after his team lost in six (I don't think a player on a losing team has ever gotten the award when his team hasn't at least gotten to a G7 in the SCF) and he wasn't particularly good in the last couple of games. Tonight in particular, he had a rather rough game as his team was shut out on home ice in a Cup-clinching game.

Staal is a rather weak winner considering his work in the first three rounds, but someone like Blake, Ehlers, Hall or Stankoven wouldn't have been an all-time great Conn Smythe winner, either.
Click to expand...

Certainly more deserving than Staal, especially when the Hall-Stankoven-Blake line was the best line not just on the Canes but arguably the entire league for all 4 rounds. It can't go to generational, 1st ballot HHOF inductees every year but this was another miss by the voters.
 
Slayer97 said:
Marner being shut out today because Eichel can't hit an open net shouldn't be on him, especially after he made a great play to keep possession.

Literally any of those names would be a much better pick, a more defensible pick than Staal
Click to expand...

I'd probably have gone with Hall (his line kind of carried them offensively through the first three rounds and he did most of his damage at even strength), but Staal did have much more defensive responsibility and he outperformed him in the last round. Vegas was the best team they played by a wide margin, and he stood out with his goal scoring in the SCF.
 
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