What makes Doug Harvey better than Ray Bourque (minus the accolades)

[TheDevilMadeMe]

And in between those, you had Gordie Howe and Jean Beliveau winning it on dynastic Wings and Habs teams. 4 out of those 10 years, the Hart went to the best player on the first-place team. I acknowledge that there are occasional exceptions, but the Hart voting patterns don't support the notion that it has ever been "easier" to win on a weaker team.

Come to think of it, this line of logic actually runs against Harvey. In every decade, the majority of Hart trophies have gone to a top-3 team. The voters have a clear tendency to favor 1st-place finishes: 44% of Harts have gone to a first-place team*, another 17% to a runner-up, and 10% to a third-place finisher... altogether, 72% of Harts have gone to a team with a top-three finish. And that includes the modern era when the league is 5 times larger. The ratio is steady (6-8 out of 10) through the prime years of both Bourque and Harvey, suggesting no competitive disadvantage to those who played on good teams in any given era and perhaps even a theoretical advantage to those who played in a smaller league.

So, an important question: how often did Bourque and Harvey play on a top-3 team? Here's how it shakes out:

Harvey: In 16 full seasons, 16 finishes in the top 3 and played on 6 first-place teams
Bourque: In 22 full seasons, 10 finishes in the top 3 and played on 3 first-place teams

Conclusion: If anything, the "voting pattern" argument skews against Harvey. His entire career was played in the "sweet spot" for Hart consideration, as opposed to Bourque who played half his career as a statistical longshot.

And still, Bourque should rightfully have won the Hart in 1990. If he had, this whole conversation would be moot.

* Counting conference standings in the expansion era

You really think a dominant player on a super-stacked team has an advantage in Hart voting over a dominant player on a good, but not stacked team? Really?

You think it's a coincidence that the year after Harvey was traded, Plante won the Hart and Harvey finished second?

Even look at the arguments for the Hart in recent years:

"Brodeur might be the 1st Team All Star, but Luongo should finish ahead of him in Hart voting because he carried his team on his back!" (05-06)

"Crosby/Malkin shouldn't win the Hart, because he has Malkin/Crosby who is almost as good!" (some years, not this one)

"The Capitals are so stacked, they barely missed a beat when Ovechkin was out, so it's hard to say he should win the Hart!" (this year)

 

[tarheelhockey]

As the playoffs proved in 1990, thank god for conspiracies, because the real MVP of the NHL that year won it. Messier was the MVP and a deserving winner.

C'mon, now you're just projecting your fanhood. The playoffs have nothing to do with the Hart. The fact is, Messier won by 2 points because 6 voters didn't even give Bourque a sniff of their ballot in an obvious MVP season. I don't think it was a conspiracy, it was just a case of people putting their individual biases ahead of the integrity of the voting process.

Hasn't there only been a handful of Hart winners on non-playoff teams?

Here's how it shakes out, according to finishes (again, using conference finishes to mitigate the expansion effect)

1st - 38 (44%)
2nd - 15 (17%)
3rd - 9 (10%)
4th - 10 (12%)
5th - 3 (3%)
6th - 5 (6%)
7th - 2 (2%)
8th - 2 (2%)
9th - 1 (1%)

(doesn't add to 100% due to fractions)

Lemieux won it from 9th, the lowest ever. He's the only non-playoff Hart winner since expansion. The 8th-place winners were Gretzky and Theodore. Gretzky also won it from 7th, as did Brooklyn's Tommy Anderson back in 41-42.

A random thought: It was, for all practical purposes, impossible for any player other than Gretzky to win the Hart during Bourque's first 8 years in the league. That was followed by Lemieux's 9th-place Hart, then another Gretzky. His first reasonable opportunity came the following year... 1990... the year of the Great Hart Conspiracy To Screw Ray Bourque And Make Him Look Bad Compared To Doug Harvey.

You really think a dominant player on a super-stacked team has an advantage in Hart voting over a dominant player on a good, but not stacked team? Really?

Let me put it this way: the second- or third-best most dominant on ANY team does not deserve the Hart, for obvious reasons. A dominant player on a good, but not stacked team is at a historical disadvantage according to the voting patterns, just as a matter of fact. The player who has a true advantage is the most dominant player on a stacked team -- in Harvey's case that was Beliveau and Howe, in Bourque's case it was Gretzky.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Here's how it shakes out, according to finishes (again, using conference finishes to mitigate the expansion effect)

1st - 38 (44%)
2nd - 15 (17%)
3rd - 9 (10%)
4th - 10 (12%)
5th - 3 (3%)
6th - 5 (6%)
7th - 2 (2%)
8th - 2 (2%)
9th - 1 (1%)

(doesn't add to 100% due to fractions)

This doesn't illustrate whether the teams made the playoffs or not. In 52'-54' Al Rollins won the Hart on the LAST place Hawks, but on this it shows up as a 6th place finish. That is not even close to the same as a 6th place finish in the Eastern or Western Conference in recent years. One is dead last, and the other is in the top half of the league. I think you just have to go through and say "made the playoffs" or "didn't make the playoffs." Afterall, the goal of every team is to win the Stanley Cup, and you can't do that if you don't make the playoffs.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Here are the only Hart winners on non-playoff teams and how they finished...

Tom Anderson: 41'-42' 7th out of 7
Al Rollins: 53'-54' 6th out of 6
Andy Bathgatte: 58'-59' 5th out of 6
Mario Lemieux: 87'-88' 9th out of 21

 

[tarheelhockey]

This doesn't illustrate whether the teams made the playoffs or not. In 52'-54' Al Rollins won the Hart on the LAST place Hawks, but on this it shows up as a 6th place finish. That is not even close to the same as a 6th place finish in the Eastern or Western Conference in recent years. One is dead last, and the other is in the top half of the league. I think you just have to go through and say "made the playoffs" or "didn't make the playoffs." Afterall, the goal of every team is to win the Stanley Cup, and you can't do that if you don't make the playoffs.

Feel free to do this. I've spent enough time crunching these numbers for one day and honestly I can't see myself going back and doing that level of analysis at this point in the afternoon. [edit: never mind, you already did!]

Perhaps another thread on this topic?

 

[nik jr]

regarding ted kennedy's hart trophy:

i did not find anything similar to the outcry about al rollins' winning and red kelly losing in '54, but from a couple of articles i found, it does seem that ted kennedy won in part as a sort of career achievement award.

the articles i found mostly focus on how kennedy finally won, on his long and great career, and on the disappointment that he decided to retire.