Who should have won the Hart in 2018?

[PensandCaps]

Kopitar. Put up those stats with basically no help, while playing elite defense. Very easily him.

 

[Albatros]

Kopitar. Put up those stats with basically no help, while playing elite defense. Very easily him.

Offensively they weren't all that great, but defensively it was a fantastic team also besides Kopitar.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

The guy who won it

 

[Three On Zero]

Kopitar or Hall, only logical 2 options. Both a clear cut above the rest

 

[Despote]

Feels like a year where 5+ players all have good cases. Wouldn't have minded any of Giroux, Kucherov, MacKinnon, Hall, Kopitar winning it. Would've felt iffy about McDavid because of the circumstance, although he probably was the best player all things considered.

 

[GoldenKnight]

MacKinnon or Malkin should have won the Hart Trophy that year. Both had a higher points per game than Hall, and both scored more points than Hall. Out of the top 10 points finishers, Malkin also scored the most goals that year with 42. Not to mention, both guys were simply better hockey players that year with more facets to their games than Hall, who is a rather one dimensional winger.

 

[Albatros]

Malkin barely outscored two of his own teammates.

 

[blundluntman]

I'd like to be objective (however, the homer in me refuses to do so) but my pick is Mackinnon. He at least has an argument given how amazing he was that year and how historically terrible the Avs were the year before. Hall has a very good argument as well (I don't even like the idea of typing this out loud) and McDavid had a monster second half of the season so there are at least 3 valid contenders to choose from

Edit: Forgot that was the year Kopitar won a Selke with 92 points. He's definitely someone that should've been in the running as well

 

[Video Nasty]

MacKinnon or Malkin should have won the Hart Trophy that year. Both had a higher points per game than Hall, and both scored more points than Hall. Out of the top 10 points finishers, Malkin also scored the most goals that year with 42. Not to mention, both guys were simply better hockey players that year with more facets to their games than Hall, who is a rather one dimensional winger.

Malkin is easily explained away. He had one hot streak that was at an unflattering time when it comes to Hart voting.

He had a lackluster first half and was also fairly ordinary during the final quarter of the season, when some of the other candidates made serious pushes or bolstered their cases.

14 goals and 38 points in 37 first half games (41 team games).

6 goals and 22 points in his final 19 games (last 6 weeks of the season).

So from January 4th through February 24th, he potted 22 goals and 38 points in 22 games.

Superb stretch, but it’s fairly easy to see why he scrapped only enough votes for 7th place when compared to the players ahead of him.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

I always value offense over defense, if there's a clear gap in production. But in this case Kopitar was right there in goals and pts while being way better defensively than the other contenders. He should have won the hart.

And lol at Malkin being mentioned. Crosby and Kessel finished top 10 in pts that season too. Malkin didn't belong anywhere near the hart and is fortunate to have finished as high as he did.

 

[Hynh]

This was not a good season for McDavid (based on his own high standards) and quite low on value provided to team (again, based on his own high standards).

Edmonton had very high expectations going into this season. Year 3 of McDavid - fresh off a strong round 2 playoff run for Oilers - people expected them to do even more damage and maybe compete for cup...and they fell completely flat on their face the first half. And McDavid did too...

By the all-star break at the end of January - McDavid was 15th in points per game, and 10th in overall points in the league.

If McDavid had been scoring like crazy all year - and despite that his team was out of playoffs because it's just an overall weak/bad team - fine, you may have a point - maybe you could say McDavid raised his team from bottom feeder to ~20th and it had value. But as it is - McDavid had no business being so far back in the scoring race when his team desparately needed him to score more to win more games.

Do you want to talk Ted Lindsay trophy winner for best player that season? Sure - I'm fine with McDavid winning. But Hart is about value provided to team - and McDavid is definitely not #1 for this season.

What a bizarre take. McDavid ends up with points on nearly half of his team's goals and he's not doing enough offensively? What percentage would you like him to be involved with?

Kucherov. Most value provided to a team, easily. To this day I'm still shocked he gets almost no recognition for his 2017-2018 season.

Tampa surprisingly missed playoffs in 2016-2017. So at start of 2017-2018, Kucherov is on fire, as he and Tampa want in the playoffs.... He leads league in scoring most of the season, and helps catapult Tampa to very top of standings all year. Tampa goes from missing playoffs to winning conference.

Then - near very end of season - Kucherov takes the foot off the gas slightly, and a couple of people pass him in scoring racein the last ~2 weeks of season. People act like this is a negative - but to me this is 100% a positive. Kucherov didn't go "all out" in meaningless games in April - and instead entered the playoffs fresh and ready to compete. All others listed here disappointed in playoffs.

The 2017-18 Oilers had 5x5 GF% of only 41% when McDavid and Draisaitl were on the bench. By comparison when Kucherov and Stamkos were on the bench in Tampa they had a 5x5 GF% of 56%. For the Oilers to match that level of bottom 6 dominance their bottom 6ers would have had to allow 32 fewer goals at 5x5.

 

[Fledgemyhedge]

McDavid had 15+39=54 points in 49 games by the start of February when the Oilers were already out of the picture. He then went on a two-month personal scoring spree doubling his own totals while the team performed even worse than they had up until that point. His season had no league-leading value to his team, nowhere near that.

personal scoring spree is a new personal favourite of mine thanks.

Anyways voted hall

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

McDavid had 15+39=54 points in 49 games by the start of February when the Oilers were already out of the picture. He then went on a two-month personal scoring spree doubling his own totals while the team performed even worse than they had up until that point. His season had no league-leading value to his team, nowhere near that.

I think the wording of the as award is flawed. You put McDavid on the Devils and Hall on the Oilers, both play exactly the same way that season and McDavid wins by a landslide while Hall doesn't even get nominated. Having the best individual season in the league won't get recognized if the rest of the team wasn't good enough to be in the playoffs. It's such a weird award. Would make so much more sense to have a MOP than MVP.

 

[Regal]

I think the wording of the as award is flawed. You put McDavid on the Devils and Hall on the Oilers, both play exactly the same way that season and McDavid wins by a landslide while Hall doesn't even get nominated. Having the best individual season in the league won't get recognized if the rest of the team wasn't good enough to be in the playoffs. It's such a weird award. Would make so much more sense to have a MOP than MVP.

But was it actually the best individual season when he wasn’t the best for most of the year and then started putting up points when the games didn’t matter and the team could just play to try to get him another Art Ross?

 

[Video Nasty]

Kucherov. Most value provided to a team, easily. To this day I'm still shocked he gets almost no recognition for his 2017-2018 season.

Tampa surprisingly missed playoffs in 2016-2017. So at start of 2017-2018, Kucherov is on fire, as he and Tampa want in the playoffs.... He leads league in scoring most of the season, and helps catapult Tampa to very top of standings all year. Tampa goes from missing playoffs to winning conference.

Then - near very end of season - Kucherov takes the foot off the gas slightly, and a couple of people pass him in scoring racein the last ~2 weeks of season. People act like this is a negative - but to me this is 100% a positive. Kucherov didn't go "all out" in meaningless games in April - and instead entered the playoffs fresh and ready to compete. All others listed here disappointed in playoffs.

Giroux - 3 points, - 10 in 6 games. Philly out in round 1
Kopitar - 2 points in 4 games, shutout in 3 of 4 games, LA swept in round 1
MacKinnon - 6 points in 6 games - but only 1 in last 3 games - Col out in round 1
Hall - 6 points in 5 games - only 1 point in final 2 games - NJ out in round 1

Kucherov - 10 points in 5 games in round 1. 3 Game winners (including series clinching goal). Tampa makes it to round 3 game 7 and loses to eventual cup winners.

Something to be said about Kucherov making sure he'd enter playoffs fresh...he was tremendous in playoffs again.

Kucherov was/is great, but come on, it’s a complete team effort and a guy getting 100 points in 80 games isn’t the sole reason his team was a 113 point team.

You’re comparing TB with the leaders of a 6th seed, a 7th seed, and two 8 seeds. All the lower seeds lost as expected. There was no genuine disappointment there.

I wonder what could possibly be the reason that the foot could possibly be taken off the gas compared to the others…

 

[Hynh]

But was it actually the best individual season when he wasn’t the best for most of the year and then started putting up points when the games didn’t matter and the team could just play to try to get him another Art Ross?

McDavid is always insanely productive down the stretch, even by his own standards. In his career his numbers are 448 points in 315 GP from October to January (117 per 82) and 402 points in 254 games (130 per 82) from February on. You're imagining an narrative that doesn't exist to justify giving an award to an inferior player that had an inferior season.

 

[Albatros]

Nothing inferior about Hall taking the Devils to the playoffs with otherwise one of the worst rosters in the league. That's exactly what an MVP does.

 

[Video Nasty]

McDavid is always insanely productive down the stretch, even by his own standards. In his career his numbers are 448 points in 315 GP from October to January (117 per 82) and 402 points in 254 games (130 per 82) from February on. You're imagining an narrative that doesn't exist to justify giving an award to an inferior player that had an inferior season.

You’re trying to reason with folks who think that McDavid scoring 5-10 more goals through the first 49 games (he had 15 and 61 through 176 career games up to that point) would have offset the 160 that the Oilers let in through 49 games, a pace (3.27 GAA) they ultimately kept up the entire season when they yielded 263 (3.21 GAA).

 

[Regal]

McDavid is always insanely productive down the stretch, even by his own standards. In his career his numbers are 448 points in 315 GP from October to January (117 per 82) and 402 points in 254 games (130 per 82) from February on. You're imagining an narrative that doesn't exist to justify giving an award to an inferior player that had an inferior season.

Other years don’t reflect on the one in question and it doesn’t change that he didn’t have an overly productive first half relative to the league leaders or by his standards. It also wasn’t the first time he didn’t have anything but points to play for down the stretch. It’s not a narrative, teams with nothing to play for tend to play looser down the stretch and teams don’t play them as tightly. I also never mentioned another player so I’m not sure how I’m justifying anything. No one seems to be able to bandy about ideas around here without taking sides. McDavid had a good year, and he was probably the best player but limited by some things out of his control, particularly with regard to the PP. But the production was what it was, and it wasn’t clearly the best season that year like some want to pretend.

 

[Regal]

You’re trying to reason with folks who think that McDavid scoring 5-10 more goals through the first 49 games (he had 15 and 61 through 176 career games up to that point) would have offset the 160 that the Oilers let in through 49 games, a pace (3.27 GAA) they ultimately kept up the entire season when they yielded 263 (3.21 GAA).

I never said anything about McDavid needing to outplay the Oilers suck, thanks. People can agree on one point and not believe everything else being said. But garbage time points are most definitely a thing though and it is a knock for a season where he wasn’t near the top for most of the year and didn’t end up much ahead of the pack in scoring. He was hurt by the team getting few PPs and having an unusually low PP%, and if those were normalized he would have stood out from the pack. But that didn’t happen and while I do think he was the best player I don’t know if he had the best or most outstanding season, regardless of value to team.

 

[Regal]

I always value offense over defense, if there's a clear gap in production. But in this case Kopitar was right there in goals and pts while being way better defensively than the other contenders. He should have won the hart.

And lol at Malkin being mentioned. Crosby and Kessel finished top 10 in pts that season too. Malkin didn't belong anywhere near the hart and is fortunate to have finished as high as he did.

The focus on the highest scoring teammates when it comes to the Hart never made much sense to me when there’s so much more to a team. I don’t think I would have Malkin all that high, but the Pens as a whole outside of him didn’t play that well, and Crosby and Kessel had poor 5v5 seasons for them

 

[GoldenKnight]

Malkin barely outscored two of his own teammates.

"His own teammates"

Good one.

Malkin outscored some guy named Sidney Crosby by 9 points, despite Malkin playing 4 less games, which is a tremendous feat in itself. Malkin carried Kessel that year and outscored him by 8 goals and 6 points, despite playing 4 less games than him as well.

 

[Help]

Hall, because it was funny

 

[Albatros]

"His own teammates"

Good one.

Malkin outscored some guy named Sidney Crosby by 9 points, despite Malkin playing 4 less games, which is a tremendous feat in itself. Malkin carried Kessel that year and outscored him by 8 goals and 6 points, despite playing 4 less games than him as well.

In other words Malkin 98, Kessel 92, Crosby 89 points.

Meanwhile in New Jersey we have Hall 93, Hischier 52, Palmieri 44 points.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

Geno, Giroux, or MacKinnon would have all been more worthy than the actual winner.

In other words Malkin 98, Kessel 92, Crosby 89 points.

Meanwhile in New Jersey we have Hall 93, Hischier 52, Palmieri 44 points.

It is harder to outscore Crosby than an 18 years old Hischier dude.

Malkin also outscored and outpaced Hall.