NHL Awards

[The Comish]

I think it will be a no-brainer by 2010 for Luongo. He should still be playing for Vancouver and he\'s been the heir apparent for some time. No doubt in my mind he\'ll be the man. It will be interesting to see if Brodeur will pull a Patrick Roy and not go if he\'s not the No.1 guy!!

[repenttokyo]

lockedge wrote:

Luongo\'s Vezina ceremony was once again hijacked by Brodeur for the 2nd time in history.

When will the GMs give credit where credit is due? I\'m not saying Brodeur was bad. He was the second best goalie in the league, by a hair. That hair or a difference was Luongo being put under more adversity and loads more penalty kill situations than brodeur, while keeping the same stats, really.

This sucks. And Pahlsson didn\'t get the Selke? What? Rod\'s a great player, but this was Sami\'s year. He played an A game and shut down everyone in his path. Maybe a lot of it was simply coaching, but still. Pahlsson was phenomenal in terms of shutting people down. he always was in the right place, and he was always reading the plays to a tee. I can\'t fault Rod, but this should have been Pahlsson\'s award. No conn smythe, no Selke, no anything but the Stanley Cup. That\'s award enough, but still. He deserved the Selke and I\'m pretty sure all the coaches and GMs who went up against him regularly would agree. It\'s those east coast troublemakers causing all these problems.

Pahlsson grew into his role over the course of the season. Brindy was the defensive go to guy every single game, all year. I think that would be the biggest difference.

[repenttokyo]

lanky522 wrote:
Gosh I hope there\'s never a debate as to whether Brodeur is better than Roy. I\'m not a huge fan of Roy\'s personality, but he is still (regardless of how many easy wins Brodeur gets) the best goalie in history. He basically invented the modern goal tending (that brodeur has had success with), and played on teams that weren\'t anywhere near as cheesy and defensive as NJ has been for Brodeur.


Don\'t even get me started on the Vezina. I\'m not a brodeur fan. His name will probably go down in history as one of the \"greatest\" goalies, but half of all his success (at least) should be attributed to his team and the system they play.<br><br>Post edited by: lanky522, at: 2007/06/15 08:51

cough cough Tretiak.

Brodeur has a very good international record as well, something Roy the ******* will never be able to say. And those international teams were not defense-first organizations.

Post edited by: repenttokyo, at: 2007/06/15 13:16

[Dobber]

I\'m against rewarding goalies with the hart, myself, but I\'m not married to that belief and can understand other points.

That being said, the league is \'grooming\' Crosby to be the next great one? That\'s because he is. That\'s one point I had to comment on.


Anyway, the bottom line with this year\'s Hart - and you guys are proving this fact just with all these posts \"Brodeur shoulda won\" \"No, Luongo shoulda won\" \"No, Broudeur shoulda won\" etc etc - clearly, the voting was split between Luongo and Brodeur...so Crosby strolled in and took the thing. While the goalie-backers bickered and split their vote, the offense-backers were united and Crosby won easily.B)

[lanky522]

Dobber wrote:

Anyway, the bottom line with this year\'s Hart - and you guys are proving this fact just with all these posts \"Brodeur shoulda won\" \"No, Luongo shoulda won\" \"No, Broudeur shoulda won\" etc etc - clearly, the voting was split between Luongo and Brodeur...so Crosby strolled in and took the thing. While the goalie-backers bickered and split their vote, the offense-backers were united and Crosby won easily

That\'s a wonderful way of putting it. I can agree with that... Masterful as always with your words dobber.

Dobber wrote:

That being said, the league is \'grooming\' Crosby to be the next great one? That\'s because he is. That\'s one point I had to comment on.

When I mentioned how the league was grooming crosby to be the next great one, I wasn\'t taking a shot at him saying he won\'t be. There\'s no doubt in my mind that he\'ll be the best skater in the league for years to come... what I was trying to say is that giving him this trophy (if he didn\'t deserve it - and I still don\'t think he does excluding the above explanation), was inappropriate.

I was trying to say that they were biased toward him in their efforts to propel him into superstardom... similarly to giving him goals/assists that aren\'t his in a deliberate effort to juice his stats...

I doubt that\'s the case with this award, and it sort of conspiracy theoryish... but I just can\'t believe that approx. 2 people thought he should\'ve won the hart for every 1 that thought it should be someone else.

Crosby was great this year, and he was the best in the league among skaters... but not by that margin.

What sort of yahoos vote for these awards anyways?

[hockeylifer]

I had no problem with Luongo finishing second to Crosby, the best player in the NHL. I understand that Crosby is being marketed by the league. At the same time his skill set cannot be questioned. He is worthy of the awards.

I did have a problem with Luongo not winning the Vezina. My problem with his losing was, Luongo did more for his team than Brodeur did for his team. I appreciate that is not a part of the criteria for winning the Vezina but it is the part that I struggled with. I consider that Luongo was more deserving of the Vezina than Brodeur.

[The Comish]

lanky522 wrote:

What sort of yahoos vote for these awards anyways?

Good question Lanky. Had to check the NHL.com website:

Hart - Professional Hockey Writers Association
Norris - same
Selke - same
Calder - same
Conn Smythe - same
Lady Byng - same
Jack Adams - NHL Broadcasters Association (?)

Vezina - NHL General Managers vote for the goalie judged the \"best at his position\".

As for the comments about the \"NHL\" grooming Crosby, I don\'t think the NHL controls the PHWA guys. Now maybe if Chris Chelios was NHL Commish, he might send someone over to talk with those writers.