Post by bookboy007 on Jan 19, 2024 19:12:53 GMT
ASG on the horizon, day off for the Bruins...so I was thinking about this, partly because the game against the AVs pitted two Hart Trophy contenders against each other - Pastrnak and MacKinnon.
The NHL's voting on awards is strange. Voters don't pick the winner; they pick the top 5 players who they think are worthy and in the order of their worthiness. The League assigns points for first place votes, second place votes, etc. and whoever gets the most points wins the electoral college. That seems like it's ripe for accusations of f**ky f**k.
Last year (slight irony warning), for the Hart, McDavid was one vote away from being a unanimous winner. Someone picked Pastrnak. So really, there was no difference between the points system and a straight up vote. That was true of every major award last year - the guy with the most first place votes won, including landslides for Bergeron and Ullmark.
But two years ago, that didn't happen. Cale Makar won the Norris with 94 first place votes. Roman Josi got 98 first place votes. Why did Makar win the trophy? Hedman (4) and McAvoy (1) also had first place votes, but their share of the second place votes grew from about 2.6% to about 12% meaning that more people thought Makar was no worse than second to Josi, Hedman and McAvoy than thought Josi was no worse than second. The gap in points was 25; both players were over 1600. But why is Makar the winner when more people thought Josi should have won? Throw out the obligatory Bruin vote which I assume is HaggsNeckFat, and one way to look at this is that Hedman took 4 votes from Makar. Makar was likely second on those ballots, and Josi third, but those voters chose Hedman. Not Makar. 5 Josi voters may have put Hedman ahead of Makar, too, which is why Makar has 5 third place ballots. Basically, 5 people (neck fat +4) thought neither Makar nor Josi should win, and in giving the award to Makar, we're "correcting" for the fact that those who didn't choose A or B might have come more from one side than the other. That seems like BS.
It's kind of rare, too, which makes you wonder why this system holds when it complicates something that should be clean. The next oddity I found going back was that Slavvin, who won a Lady Byng a couple of years back, came in 4th for the Byng in 19-20 despite having the second most first place votes behind the winner - MacKinnon. In fact, he has as many first place votes as the second and third place finishers combined. Wouldn't have changed who won, but it does affect who gets to go to the Awards event, who is named as a finalist, etc., and maybe even affected his bonuses and took money out of his pocket. Also seems like BS.
The next example working back - Norris in 2014-15 went to Karlsson over Doughty, and in this case it wasn't 4 1st place votes. Doughty had 53 and Karlsson 44. And there were other contenders with Subban and Weber both in the mid-20s. Somehow, a whopping 27 fewer 2, 3, and 4 votes went to Doughty than Karlson, and that means 16 more voters didn't vote for Doughty AT ALL than Karlsson.
Year before, Toews stole the Selke from Bergeron despite Bergeron getting more first place votes. Crime! That year, there was also a tie for the Calder with Gallagher and Huberdeau having the same number of first place votes and Huberdeau taking it based on the other placings.
I took a quick look at some of the fancy stats to see if that had something to do with it and the answer is...maybe? Karlsson's offensive point share was miles ahead of Doughty's that year, and so his overall point share was miles ahead of almost everyone, despite Doughty having a huge advantage in defensive point share. But the best point share actually went to Subban not the other two, so someone voting on that metric would have gravitated to Subban not Karlsson unless they had already narrowed their field.
They probably don't change this because it doesn't create much controversy and I'm sure teams like being able to hype players based on their awards voting results. If you kept it to just the first place votes, all the guys who don't get first place votes would fade into the background. But I would be pissed if I won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college.
Side note here is how often the winner of a major award was a landslide. 2012-13 was a hotly contested year with Ovechkin taking Hart over Crosby by 4 first place votes, Byng was St.Louis over Kane by 3 1stvotes in addition to the Calder tie and the theft from Bergeron. But more often than not this decade, it's been a very very clear winner in most circumstances. And the Vezina has been particularly a consensus - rare that more than one goalie gets double digits in 1stvotes (Fleury's win was one). Curiously, the Norris seems to be the hot button example. In 10-11, for example, Lidstrom won with 35 firsts, Weber had 32, and Chara came 3rd but had 33 1stvotes.
Last note...closest overall race affected that I saw ws in 2008-09 when Datsyuk (55) took the Selke from Mike Richards (61) by 3 total points. That had to hurt. No wonder he needed to import that much contraband Oxy.
The NHL's voting on awards is strange. Voters don't pick the winner; they pick the top 5 players who they think are worthy and in the order of their worthiness. The League assigns points for first place votes, second place votes, etc. and whoever gets the most points wins the electoral college. That seems like it's ripe for accusations of f**ky f**k.
Last year (slight irony warning), for the Hart, McDavid was one vote away from being a unanimous winner. Someone picked Pastrnak. So really, there was no difference between the points system and a straight up vote. That was true of every major award last year - the guy with the most first place votes won, including landslides for Bergeron and Ullmark.
But two years ago, that didn't happen. Cale Makar won the Norris with 94 first place votes. Roman Josi got 98 first place votes. Why did Makar win the trophy? Hedman (4) and McAvoy (1) also had first place votes, but their share of the second place votes grew from about 2.6% to about 12% meaning that more people thought Makar was no worse than second to Josi, Hedman and McAvoy than thought Josi was no worse than second. The gap in points was 25; both players were over 1600. But why is Makar the winner when more people thought Josi should have won? Throw out the obligatory Bruin vote which I assume is HaggsNeckFat, and one way to look at this is that Hedman took 4 votes from Makar. Makar was likely second on those ballots, and Josi third, but those voters chose Hedman. Not Makar. 5 Josi voters may have put Hedman ahead of Makar, too, which is why Makar has 5 third place ballots. Basically, 5 people (neck fat +4) thought neither Makar nor Josi should win, and in giving the award to Makar, we're "correcting" for the fact that those who didn't choose A or B might have come more from one side than the other. That seems like BS.
It's kind of rare, too, which makes you wonder why this system holds when it complicates something that should be clean. The next oddity I found going back was that Slavvin, who won a Lady Byng a couple of years back, came in 4th for the Byng in 19-20 despite having the second most first place votes behind the winner - MacKinnon. In fact, he has as many first place votes as the second and third place finishers combined. Wouldn't have changed who won, but it does affect who gets to go to the Awards event, who is named as a finalist, etc., and maybe even affected his bonuses and took money out of his pocket. Also seems like BS.
The next example working back - Norris in 2014-15 went to Karlsson over Doughty, and in this case it wasn't 4 1st place votes. Doughty had 53 and Karlsson 44. And there were other contenders with Subban and Weber both in the mid-20s. Somehow, a whopping 27 fewer 2, 3, and 4 votes went to Doughty than Karlson, and that means 16 more voters didn't vote for Doughty AT ALL than Karlsson.
Year before, Toews stole the Selke from Bergeron despite Bergeron getting more first place votes. Crime! That year, there was also a tie for the Calder with Gallagher and Huberdeau having the same number of first place votes and Huberdeau taking it based on the other placings.
I took a quick look at some of the fancy stats to see if that had something to do with it and the answer is...maybe? Karlsson's offensive point share was miles ahead of Doughty's that year, and so his overall point share was miles ahead of almost everyone, despite Doughty having a huge advantage in defensive point share. But the best point share actually went to Subban not the other two, so someone voting on that metric would have gravitated to Subban not Karlsson unless they had already narrowed their field.
They probably don't change this because it doesn't create much controversy and I'm sure teams like being able to hype players based on their awards voting results. If you kept it to just the first place votes, all the guys who don't get first place votes would fade into the background. But I would be pissed if I won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college.
Side note here is how often the winner of a major award was a landslide. 2012-13 was a hotly contested year with Ovechkin taking Hart over Crosby by 4 first place votes, Byng was St.Louis over Kane by 3 1stvotes in addition to the Calder tie and the theft from Bergeron. But more often than not this decade, it's been a very very clear winner in most circumstances. And the Vezina has been particularly a consensus - rare that more than one goalie gets double digits in 1stvotes (Fleury's win was one). Curiously, the Norris seems to be the hot button example. In 10-11, for example, Lidstrom won with 35 firsts, Weber had 32, and Chara came 3rd but had 33 1stvotes.
Last note...closest overall race affected that I saw ws in 2008-09 when Datsyuk (55) took the Selke from Mike Richards (61) by 3 total points. That had to hurt. No wonder he needed to import that much contraband Oxy.
