Edmonton may take Hart with a 1-2 finish
McDavid, Draisaitl have shot to do something not seen since Boston in 1971
There’s probably going to become a point, when we look back at Connor McDavid’s career, and wonder why he didn’t win the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player all the time.
The wunderkind from Newmarket, now in his fifth NHL season, has only won it once, though that’s probably going to change this year.
McDavid is far and away the greatest player in the game. He has 12 goals and 12 assists in his last 11 games, and he is leading an Edmonton renaissance that has made the Oilers relevant again.
Well, maybe not far and away. The second-best player in the NHL right now is probably his winger, Leon Draisaitl, who leads the NHL (and McDavid by one point) in scoring with 48 points.
That shouldn’t get in the way of McDavid taking home the Hart when the time comes. Nothing wrong with a 1-2 finish.
And maybe that’s the bigger question. Can teammates go 1-2 in Hart voting? It hasn’t happened since 1971, when Boston’s Bobby Orr won over Phil Esposito.
All these years of teams built around dynamic duos — Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic, Jaromir Jagr and Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier — and it hasn’t happened again.
There’s another worthy pair out there this year — Boston’s David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand, also in the top five in scoring — but Hart voters are certainly going to be drawn to the Oilers, a team left for dead with its revolving door of coaching changes, GM changes and misses on high draft picks (see Jesse Puljujarvi, Nail Yakupov).
This year, a new coach, Dave Tippett, and a new GM, Ken Holland, have put together a worthy mix of players, but none are relied on as much as McDavid and Draisaitl. Draisaitl leads all forwards in average time on ice at 22:53, McDavid is second at 22:18. Those are numbers worthy of top-pair defencemen.
“Those guys are two top players,” Tippett said in Arizona on Sunday. “You’re trying to maximize what they can do. Those guys, they take a good chunk of the game and have a big impact on the game.”
The Oilers are 16-7-3, first in the Pacific Division, and will be sitting in a playoff spot later this week, when U.S. Thanksgiving hits.
Voters often value, and perhaps overvalue, what a player does down the stretch to get his team into the playoffs. (Think New Jersey’s Taylor Hall in 2018.) But how players perform in the opening months of the season might be even more important. Managers have come to understand what kind of team they have by the end of November. The vast majority of teams — usually 12 or 13 — that are in a playoff position by the U.S. Thanksgiving hold on to that spot and advance to the post-season.
Those first two months can give teams a cushion to overcome injuries, or a bad spell, or a tough schedule. Last year, Nikita Kucherov went wire to wire as a man on fire in leading the Tampa Bay Lightning and winning his first Hart, as decided by voters from the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA). McDavid and Draisaitl have done that this season. Here’s to a 1-2 finish.
And here’s a look at where things might stand with the other awards, with the league just over a quarter of the way through the 2019-20 season:
NORRIS TROPHY Voted by the PHWA
Washington’s John Carlson is having an exceptional season and entered Monday tied for fourth in scoring with 36 points. He’s quick to point out he’s working with talented teammates. “I think we’ve scored a little bit more than we usually do, but it sure seems like if I make a decent play that someone’s making a really good play.”
Dallas’s Esa Lindell, who has played 115 minutes on the penalty kill, shouldn’t be overlooked, while Nashville’s Ryan Eliis has the best expected goals-for percentage (60.45) among blueliners that have played at least 200 minutes. That metric measures the number of high-danger scoring chances for and against with a player on the ice.
VEZINA TROPHY Voted by general managers
Darcy Kuemper deserves a lot of credit for turning around Arizona (14-8-3) and his numbers (.934 save percentage, 1.98 goals against average) have to put him among the league’s best goalies. He also got into a brawl recently with Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk, which might separate him from the pack in the minds of some voters. “Obviously, what Kuemper has done for us, he’s a top goalie,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said recently.
But it’s an open field, with a lot of familiar names having great starts, including Tuukka Rask in Boston (.928, 2.18), Jordan Binnington in St. Louis (.926, 2.23) and Robin Lehner in Chicago (.938, 2.38). Last year’s winner, Tampa’s Andrej Vasilevskiy (.908, 2.88), is struggling.
SELKE TROPHY Voted by the PHWA
The award to the best defensive forward, also known as the Patrice Bergeron Award, will probably go to Patrice Bergeron if he plays the full season. Voters struggle with this one given the best defence is a strong offence. What’s the point of playing in your own end. Bergeron is a terrific puck pursuer. But then so is Connor McDavid.
Montreal’s Philip Danault probably more fits the spirit of the award. He has far more defensive zone starts (76 to 53) than offensive zone starts, and still drives possession, is on the ice for more shot attempts for (380) than against (269). Nashville’s Nick Bonino is another in the Danault mould, with overwhelming defensive zone starts (84, compared to 30 in the offensive zone) and good shot attempt numbers when he’s on the ice (260 for, 216 against). They get the puck and move it to the other end. That’s a good defensive forward.
CALDER TROPHY Voted by the PHWA
An incredibly good crop of rookies, but Colorado’s Cale Makar has to be the early favourite. A defenceman, Makar leads rookies in scoring with 25 points, seven of them goals. He has lived up to his billing, which gave the Avalanche confidence to trade Tyson Barrie to Toronto in the off-season.
Another defenceman, Quinn Hughes, is right on his heels. Hughes is second in rookie scoring with 18 points. Both play about 20 minutes a game. Hughes has far better possession numbers (55.74 per cent to Makar’s 49.26 per cent).
JACK ADAMS AWARD Voted by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association
Tippett has to be the early favourite as coach of the year for the turnaround in Edmonton. The cast of players haven’t changed that much from the team that missed the playoffs last year, though notably the goaltending has been better and the core of young players is maturing, especially on the blue line.
No one could argue though if Barry Trotz won it again. His Islanders continue to amaze.