Why did Gretzky win the Hart in 1989 with 31 fewer goals/points than Lemieux?

[Rpenny]

It is not just about pts

LAK before gretz and with Gretz it is obvious

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

It is not just about pts

LAK before gretz and with Gretz it is obvious

Cool. The penguins had finally made the playoffs. 168 points couldn't do it the previous season and it took 199 points to do so. Plain robbery

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I thought it was a travesty then and I still feel that way. Lemieux was absolutely ripped off that year. That was was about as bad as Langway over Coffey for the Norris.

 

[TheStatican]

I agree with the OP without question. It's funny as I recall this being one of my earliest debates about hockey awards, why Lemieux lost in 89 to Gretz and it was always about how Gretz lifted the Kings from the basement the previous year. Of course failing to mention all the other changes with the team. Also funny is I often remember people assuming Lemieux's Penguins missed the playoffs and that was the justification.

For sports MVPs in general you may also be interested to know arguably the absolute worst regular season MVP going to Bill Russell in the same season Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50PPG and Oscar Robertson averaged his triple double. Of course the thought process being the two split the vote allowing Russell to sneak in but the other aspect was Russell was head of the player's association I think or generally revered while Wilt was maligned at that time due to his flashiness. In the NFL it's arguably Elway over Rice in his 22 TD season, Montana over Cunningham in 90 and one of Manning's mid-range seasons arguably 2008 where he was like 6th in TDs and 8th in Yards while Warner got the Cardinals into the playoffs for the first time in 10 seasons and was leading candidate. The overall voting is the stuff of legend where Peyton got 32 of 50 votes and Warner ended up with 1 while Chad Pennington was the Runner-Up. In Warner's case it basically came down to 1 really lousy game that could have cost the Cardinals the playoffs and he was blamed for that and all of a sudden "exposed" as being the product of his receivers. It's completely asinine looking back because Peyton goes on to lose in the first round and Warner gives the Cardinals a late lead in the Super Bowl.


Apologies if I went off the rails. I think it was largely off the ice impact of Gretz going to the West coast and what his success meant for the NHL moving forward there and other markets.

YES! THANK YOU - my thoughts exactly!

It was absolutely highway robbery and I'll never forgive the stupidity of the media for perpetuating that belief at the time. He was always disrespected throughout his career just because he was an outsider and not one of those college stars groomed by the establishment and anointed be the 'next great thing' by the media before they even turned pro
It wasn't until after that final run and then his induction into the HOF that people started to rightfully give him full credit for everything he accomplished during his career.

 

[Mrb1p]

Gretzky took the biggest joke of the NHL and made them a contender. At the same time he propelled some players on that team to new heights that they've never achieved. Look at Bernie Nichols. The guy was a very good player but 150 points? That's all Gretzky.

And Yzerman, that guy had nobody to play with that year. He basically scored 155 points with very little help.

Mario had a tremendous year too and I wouldn't have been upset if he had won the Hart trophy, but I think a lot of the writers, and the NHLPA themselves looked at factors described above and by what VanIslander suggested.

You could make the argument that Mario had a lot better support in all fashions than both Gretz and Stevie had that year.

I mean have you ever heard of Rob Brown ? Thats a pretty ridiculous argument to make, lol. Quinn, Cullen and others were all pretty much one-hits wonders under Mario. Coffey is the only support he had.

I'd take Robitaille, Nichols and Duschene here for "team support".

Also the Pens had missed the playoffs for 6 years prior to 88-89. Another pretty ridiculous non-argument. The Kings made the playoffs the two years prior, even if the division was weaker.

He probably got robbed in some fashion, though Yzermans season was very impressive as he tied Lemieux's ES totals with lesser support. I still think that a 50 points difference is pretty telling, though. Probably a year where they thought "not him again".

 

[Midnight Judges]

I thought it was a travesty then and I still feel that way. Lemieux was absolutely ripped off that year. That was was about as bad as Langway over Coffey for the Norris.

Dude, there was a pretty good case for Langway. When Langway joined the Capitals, they went from joke to first time playoff team. Their goals against plummeted by 50. Simultaneously, Montreal's goals against significantly increased, also by about 50. There were other factors of course but the media narrative around Langway had some supporting evidence.

Langway is also credited with bringing a better level of professionalism and leadership culture.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Dude, there was a pretty good case for Langway. When Langway joined the Capitals, they went from joke to first time playoff team. Their goals against plummeted by 50. Simultaneously, Montreal's goals against significantly increased, also by about 50. There were other factors of course but the media narrative around Langway had some supporting evidence.

Langway is also credited with bringing a better level of professionalism and leadership culture.

It was an awful decision. There always seems to be some kind of backlash against offensive blueliners by old school guys. I'm not slamming Langway but there's no way he deserved it over Coffey.

 

[spcastlemagic]

The media wasn’t willing to admit somebody has surpassed Gretzky, so they pretended it didn’t happen. That’s all there is to it.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

The media wasn’t willing to admit somebody has surpassed Gretzky, so they pretended it didn’t happen. That’s all there is to it.

It really felt like a political decision to me. Brutal.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Dude, there was a pretty good case for Langway. When Langway joined the Capitals, they went from joke to first time playoff team. Their goals against plummeted by 50. Simultaneously, Montreal's goals against significantly increased, also by about 50. There were other factors of course but the media narrative around Langway had some supporting evidence.

Langway is also credited with bringing a better level of professionalism and leadership culture.

I think that speaks to the difference between "best" and "most valuable". Langway had a huge impact on the Capitals, for the reasons you just mentioned. His high rankings in the Hart trophy voting are justifiable. But I don't think he deserved either of his Norris trophies. Even if you take the (perfectly defensible) position that Langway was the best defensive defenseman in the NHL, there's no way that he was a more impactful player (scoring 32 and 33 points) than elite two-way defensemen like Denis Potvin (85 points in 1984), Mark Howe (67 points in 1983), or Ray Bourque (96 points in 1984). If some prefers Langway's excellent defensive play over Coffey's 126 points (1984) - that's fine. But there's no way Langway was so much better defensively than Potvin, Howe and Bourque, that it makes up for them doubling and even tripling his production. Langway shouldn't have won either of his Norris trophies, but I'm fine with him finishing runner-up to Gretzky for the Hart.

A similar situation was 2003 - but in this case, the voters got it right. Lidstrom won the Norris, but MacInnis finished higher in voting for the Hart trophy. Lidstrom was a fair bit better defensively (more than enough to offset the 6 point gap) - so Lidstrom was (rightfully) named the league's best defenseman. But MacInnis held the Blues together (they finished one point ahead of the year before) - despite Chris Pronger missing virtually the entire season, Keith Tkachuk missing 26 games, and MacInnis having to babysit a rookie Barrett Jackman all year.

 

[Midnight Judges]

I think that speaks to the difference between "best" and "most valuable". Langway had a huge impact on the Capitals, for the reasons you just mentioned. His high rankings in the Hart trophy voting are justifiable. But I don't think he deserved either of his Norris trophies. Even if you take the (perfectly defensible) position that Langway was the best defensive defenseman in the NHL, there's no way that he was a more impactful player (scoring 32 and 33 points) than elite two-way defensemen like Denis Potvin (85 points in 1984), Mark Howe (67 points in 1983), or Ray Bourque (96 points in 1984). If some prefers Langway's excellent defensive play over Coffey's 126 points (1984) - that's fine. But there's no way Langway was so much better defensively than Potvin, Howe and Bourque, that it makes up for them doubling and even tripling his production. Langway shouldn't have won either of his Norris trophies, but I'm fine with him finishing runner-up to Gretzky for the Hart.

A similar situation was 2003 - but in this case, the voters got it right. Lidstrom won the Norris, but MacInnis finished higher in voting for the Hart trophy. Lidstrom was a fair bit better defensively (more than enough to offset the 6 point gap) - so Lidstrom was (rightfully) named the league's best defenseman. But MacInnis held the Blues together (they finished one point ahead of the year before) - despite Chris Pronger missing virtually the entire season, Keith Tkachuk missing 26 games, and MacInnis having to babysit a rookie Barrett Jackman all year.

I agree with the thrust of your point - that a defenseman can generally not prevent as many goals as Paul Coffey's offensive ability likely generated.

But I think there are some mitigating factors:

If you take Paul Coffey off those Oilers and put him on those Capitals, his gaudy offensive numbers are likely going down a fair amount. The Capitals scored 306 goals to Edmonton's 424. Some of that difference is Coffey but surely not most of it. It's also a schematic play style thing not just a talent thing.

Unfortunately Coffey jumping from playing with Gretzky to playing with Lemieux doesn't exactly help us understand what he would look like with a normal set of teammates.

Probably less of Coffey's offense translated to wins relative to Langway and this gets to your point about value. The Oilers were a wildly high scoring team engaged in shootout hockey. If you look at their record, there's an awful lot of big numbers there, lots of 7 to 2, 8 to 4, 7 to 3 games. There's several tens in there lol. They sometimes scored 6 or 7 goals and lost. It's a different animal.

Point being, yes Coffey's offensive numbers were fantastic, but did they translate to wins? I think much of it certainly did, and at the same time that team was doing some serious stat padding (because they could). Yet relative to all that offense, their record wasn't commensurately better than the Capitals in 1983 (94 points vs 106 points). -A 19.5% difference in standings points vs a whopping 38.5% difference in goals for.

 

[WingsFan95]

I think that speaks to the difference between "best" and "most valuable". Langway had a huge impact on the Capitals, for the reasons you just mentioned. His high rankings in the Hart trophy voting are justifiable. But I don't think he deserved either of his Norris trophies. Even if you take the (perfectly defensible) position that Langway was the best defensive defenseman in the NHL, there's no way that he was a more impactful player (scoring 32 and 33 points) than elite two-way defensemen like Denis Potvin (85 points in 1984), Mark Howe (67 points in 1983), or Ray Bourque (96 points in 1984). If some prefers Langway's excellent defensive play over Coffey's 126 points (1984) - that's fine. But there's no way Langway was so much better defensively than Potvin, Howe and Bourque, that it makes up for them doubling and even tripling his production. Langway shouldn't have won either of his Norris trophies, but I'm fine with him finishing runner-up to Gretzky for the Hart.

A similar situation was 2003 - but in this case, the voters got it right. Lidstrom won the Norris, but MacInnis finished higher in voting for the Hart trophy. Lidstrom was a fair bit better defensively (more than enough to offset the 6 point gap) - so Lidstrom was (rightfully) named the league's best defenseman. But MacInnis held the Blues together (they finished one point ahead of the year before) - despite Chris Pronger missing virtually the entire season, Keith Tkachuk missing 26 games, and MacInnis having to babysit a rookie Barrett Jackman all year.

What's your take on Pronger's Hart season?

I agree Bourque in 84 deserved the nod.

 

[daver]

The media wasn’t willing to admit somebody has surpassed Gretzky, so they pretended it didn’t happen. That’s all there is to it.

Except they did exactly just that the year before. As did the players.

The bigger headscratcher is Yzerman winning the Pearson. That does make one wonder if there was some sort of collusion if one has some tin foil handy. Of course, Mario was gifted a Pearson in 85/86 so it's not like he was always getting screwed.

Wayne to LA was such a big story and there can be some weird takes on the Hart. Mario just happened to get caught up in it. Howe didn't win twice during his peak but won twice in non-Art Ross winning seasons.

 

[bobholly39]

Except they did exactly just that the year before. As did the players.

The bigger headscratcher is Yzerman winning the Pearson. That does make one wonder if there was some sort of collusion if one has some tin foil handy. Of course, Mario was gifted a Pearson in 85/86 so it's not like he was always getting screwed.

Wayne to LA was such a big story and there can be some weird takes on the Hart. Mario just happened to get caught up in it. Howe didn't win twice during his peak but won twice in non-Art Ross winning seasons.

If you look at things objectively, the worst awards in order of stupidity are:

Lemieux Pearson in 86
Yzerman Pearson in 89
Gretzky Hart in 89

I'm all for agreeing that Lemieux > Gretzky for hart in 89, but among those 3 awards this one is the least egregious one.

I think a lot of that has to do with Pearson simply being voted....differently, then the Lindsay is today. But it still looks bad historically.

For Lemieux - I always figured +1 Pearson he didn't deserve -1 Hart he did deserve kind of evens itself out. Although technically - I 100% would have given Lemieux the hart in 1992 as well above Messier, so technically that's 2 harts he missed out on unjustly.

 

[daver]

I think a lot of that has to do with Pearson simply being voted....differently, then the Lindsay is today. But it still looks bad historically.

How so? What was different?

 

[bobholly39]

How so? What was different?

The Pearson was awarded in 1986 to the player who had contributed the most to the sport of hockey. It's different than the Lindsay being for "most outstanding player" today.

old thread here discusses it:

Mario's first Pearson Trophy in 1986 – blatantly undeserved?

I was comparing Wayne Gretzky's totals of eight Hart trophies and five Lester B. Pearson trophies. Every time that he won the Pearson he also won the Hart, but the opposite didn't occur. One of the three seasons that Gretzky won the Hart but lost the Pearson was 1985-86. What's puzzling is...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I mean have you ever heard of Rob Brown ? Thats a pretty ridiculous argument to make, lol. Quinn, Cullen and others were all pretty much one-hits wonders under Mario. Coffey is the only support he had.

Season	Age	Tm	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM
				Scor	Scor	Scor
1989-90	25	PIT	72	32	60	92	-13	138
1990-91	26	TOT	78	39	71	110	-6	101
1990-91	26	PIT	65	31	63	94	0	83
1990-91	26	HAR	13	8	8	16	-6	18
1991-92	27	HAR	77	26	51	77	-28	141

john cullen’s one hit was the opportunity he got as the pens’ number one center when mario was injured

up to the day before mario came back into the lineup in january, cullen’s stat line was 49 games, 79 pts. he was second in scoring, behind gretzky. his linemate recchi was 3rd with 75, hull (who had already scored his 50th goal) was 4th with 72, coffey was 6th with 64, his other linemate stevens was 13th with 54.

without mario, cullen was on pace for a monster 128 pt season.

between mario’s first game back and cullen’s last game before he was traded to hartford, his stat line was 15 pts in 16 games. fwiw recchi in that time was scoring at exactly the same 120 pt pace with mario as he had with cullen centering him.


edit: although funny thing about rob brown, he and cullen re-hooked up the next season in hartford (they were traded for a combined haul of scott young, ron francis, and ulf samuelsson — three 1,000 game players who each would win multiple cups, ouch) and for a stretch they were decently successful.

through jan 2, 1992, brown was leading the league in PP goals, with 13 (but only 3 ES goals). hull and a bunch of others were tied for second with 11. brown and cullen were tied for 6th in PP pts with 22. then, after a bad two weeks (0 goals, 1 assist for brown) he was traded again, for journeyman dman steve konroyd.

cullen also cooled off, although not nearly as badly. he finished the 1992 season at exactly a pt/game and was tied with adam oates for 16th with 36 PP pts.

 

[gretzkyoilers]

I agree with the thrust of your point - that a defenseman can generally not prevent as many goals as Paul Coffey's offensive ability likely generated.

But I think there are some mitigating factors:

If you take Paul Coffey off those Oilers and put him on those Capitals, his gaudy offensive numbers are likely going down a fair amount. The Capitals scored 306 goals to Edmonton's 424. Some of that difference is Coffey but surely not most of it. It's also a schematic play style thing not just a talent thing.

Unfortunately Coffey jumping from playing with Gretzky to playing with Lemieux doesn't exactly help us understand what he would look like with a normal set of teammates.

Probably less of Coffey's offense translated to wins relative to Langway and this gets to your point about value. The Oilers were a wildly high scoring team engaged in shootout hockey. If you look at their record, there's an awful lot of big numbers there, lots of 7 to 2, 8 to 4, 7 to 3 games. There's several tens in there lol. They sometimes scored 6 or 7 goals and lost. It's a different animal.

Point being, yes Coffey's offensive numbers were fantastic, but did they translate to wins? I think much of it certainly did, and at the same time that team was doing some serious stat padding (because they could). Yet relative to all that offense, their record wasn't commensurately better than the Capitals in 1983 (94 points vs 106 points). -A 19.5% difference in standings points vs a whopping 38.5% difference in goals for.

I think people under estimate the importance of Coffey. He was huge on both Wayne's and Mario's teams. He gets overshadowed by the greatness of these two offensive juggernauts.

 

[MadLuke]

Red Wings in 92-93

Before/after Coffey arrive
B: 4.21 GF per games, 3.38 GA per games
A: 4.76 GF per games, 3.26 GA per games

Jimmy Carson that was scoring that well that year for them was lost by the wings in that trade.

Kings before/after Coffey leave
4.06 GF per games, 4.10 GA per games
3.97 GF per games, 3.97 GA per games (Gretzky came back in early january has Coffey leaved, him and Carson made up for Coffey absence it seem)


Yzerman himself went from
53GP, 37G, 36A, 73 pts (116 pts pace)
31GP: 21G, 43A, 64 pts (173.4 pts pace)

Coffey is a rare player that moved so much while still being the kind of player one could talk about when having a conversation about the biggest offensive dynamo of all time, mid season, in between season, etc... that maybe it would be possible to have some rough estimate to what he did to those star forwards scoring and teams overall.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Red Wings in 92-93

Before/after Coffey arrive
B: 4.21 GF per games, 3.38 GA per games
A: 4.76 GF per games, 3.26 GA per games

Jimmy Carson that was scoring that well that year for them was lost by the wings in that trade.

Kings before/after Coffey leave
4.06 GF per games, 4.10 GA per games
3.97 GF per games, 3.97 GA per games (Gretzky came back in early january has Coffey leaved, him and Carson made up for Coffey absence it seem)


Yzerman himself went from
53GP, 37G, 36A, 73 pts (116 pts pace)
31GP: 21G, 43A, 64 pts (173.4 pts pace)

Coffey is a rare player that moved so much while being the kind of player one could talk about when having a conversation about the biggest offensive dynamo of all time, mid season, in between season, etc... that maybe it would be possible to have some rough estimate to what he did to those star forwards scoring and teams overall.

Agreed. It's poetic that their peaks were in the same time period because Oates is in the same "hired gun" mold. Come to town, make the offense godly, then for some reason get moved.

One of the most slept on Coffey stats IMO (and it reinforces your point) is that he is over PPG for 4 different teams:

EDM: 669 in 532
PIT: 440 in 331
DET: 239 in 231
LAK: 62 in 60

 

[MadLuke]

The Blues added "only" 20 goals when Oates came in 89-90 considering they got Maclean has well..,., scored more in 92-93 when he left but everyone did that year and Shanahan really got going.

But Federko that they lost for him was quite the playmaker, so adding goals is already quite good.

 

[spcastlemagic]

Except they did exactly just that the year before. As did the players.

Wayne to LA was such a big story and there can be some weird takes on the Hart.

I’ll admit I remembered this wrong haha. I think the later is really what happened… media groupthink. Gretzky winning scoring titles by huge margins and then failing to win championships in the early 80s was never held against him in the Hart discussions. He was the golden boy. Mario got held to a different standard in 88-89 because it’s a media award, the media gets caught up in groupthink or enamored with its own cleverness, so things change to suit its needs. I now want a Canadian history ph.d to explore the nature of the Ontario-media-complex, Anglican-bias, and francophobia in 1980s Canada because I’m convinced if Lemieux was a farm strong boy from the prairies it doesn’t go down that way lol.

 

[MadLuke]

Except they did exactly just that the year before. As did the players.

Gretzky played 64 games (a bit like 00 Jagr) on a team with Messier-Kurri-Anderson-Tikkanen-Simpson-Fuhr, etc..., not sure it count has being exactly that the year before.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I agree with the thrust of your point - that a defenseman can generally not prevent as many goals as Paul Coffey's offensive ability likely generated.

But I think there are some mitigating factors:

If you take Paul Coffey off those Oilers and put him on those Capitals, his gaudy offensive numbers are likely going down a fair amount. The Capitals scored 306 goals to Edmonton's 424. Some of that difference is Coffey but surely not most of it. It's also a schematic play style thing not just a talent thing.

Unfortunately Coffey jumping from playing with Gretzky to playing with Lemieux doesn't exactly help us understand what he would look like with a normal set of teammates.

Probably less of Coffey's offense translated to wins relative to Langway and this gets to your point about value. The Oilers were a wildly high scoring team engaged in shootout hockey. If you look at their record, there's an awful lot of big numbers there, lots of 7 to 2, 8 to 4, 7 to 3 games. There's several tens in there lol. They sometimes scored 6 or 7 goals and lost. It's a different animal.

Point being, yes Coffey's offensive numbers were fantastic, but did they translate to wins? I think much of it certainly did, and at the same time that team was doing some serious stat padding (because they could). Yet relative to all that offense, their record wasn't commensurately better than the Capitals in 1983 (94 points vs 106 points). -A 19.5% difference in standings points vs a whopping 38.5% difference in goals for.

I think we're in agreement. Given the context of their teams (run & gun Oilers vs the more conservative Capitals), the gap between Coffey and Langway's production shrinks somewhat. (Coffey was still far more productive, but the gap, although still large, is somewhat smaller than it first appears).

 

[gretzkyoilers]

I think we're in agreement. Given the context of their teams (run & gun Oilers vs the more conservative Capitals), the gap between Coffey and Langway's production shrinks somewhat. (Coffey was still far more productive, but the gap, although still large, is somewhat smaller than it first appears).

I don't think it would shrink that much. After those huge Oilers seasons, he was still a PPG (or more; huge number in Pittsburgh) defenseman winning his final Norris in 1995. Paul was a completely different player than Langway...