Ovy for MVP. Who else carry’s their team like Ovy does? Malkin still has Sid. Personally the only other people on the list who I feel really carried their teams are Steve Mason and Zachy Parise.

Posted by Performance Parts on 04/06/09 at 07:17 AM ET

The idea that one players “carries”  a team is generally flawed.  Is Ovechkin carrying his team?  His team includes the likely Norris Trophy winner in Mike Green.  It includes Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin.  It is a team.  It has several good players.  The same is true of any other team of any quality.

If you truly are looking for a team being carried by one guy you should be looking at Mark Streit or Ilya Kovalchuk as MVPs.  That is what it looks like when one player carries a team in a league like the NHL.  Any team needs several good players to succeed and (for example) make playoffs.  The suggestion that player X is the only reason that team Y succeeded and thus he should be MVP is badly flawed. 

The only logical way to pick the MVP is to pick the player who contributes the most win shares (were that a fully definable quantity in hockey sabermetrics).  It is the guy who wins the most games for his team - and no player wins nearly enough games to possibly make a team become a winner.  Even though it isn’t a fully defined concent, one can ask who would likely be the leader if we had a theory to define such a thing.  That player is your MVP.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 04/06/09 at 07:24 AM ET

Who checks?  Who blocks shots?  Who has the better +/-?  Who can kill penalties? Faceoff %? Least turnovers and penalties leading to a goal,

Last time I checked, this trophy is supposed to go to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.  Who has a greater role in making their own team win?

If a scoring weapon only is the most valuable to a given team, then super.  The MVP should be near the top of the list in scoring.  But, a scoring-only weapon isn’t necessarily what’s most valuable to every team.  Is a player REALLY the MOST valuable to his team because he has 112 points rather than 108?  I find that pretty hard to believe.

Obviously, I think you’re right on the money with the public sentiment.  However, I think it’s incredibly stupid that this award has gone to a D-man once since 1972. 

The perennial criteria for MVP are “OMG who scored the most on one of the top teams, just give it to him LOL”, and throw in a goalie once a decade.  There’s so much more to hockey than scoring, and that’s what upsets me about how the MVP and Norris trophies have turned into scoring races.

Posted by MarkK from Maryland on 04/06/09 at 07:31 AM ET

Call it sour grapes, but to me it’s sad that the MVP will likely go to a guy that’s a defensive liability if he doesn’t spend the entire shift in the offensive zone. He’s -5 since the ASG. In his last two games against the offensive juggernauts Atlanta and Buffalo, he’s -4. His offensive talent is undeniable. It just seems to me that to be given an award as prestigious as MVP, you ought to be closer to the complete package.

And how about the Norris? The league might as well create a new award for best offensive defenseman, that way the Norris can actually be awarded to the best all-around defenseman. I doubt there’s a single forward in the league that’s intimidated when they have to go out for a PP shift against Mike Green.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 04/06/09 at 08:22 AM ET

MMarkK

I agree with the principle behind your rant but not most of the details.  It seems you are suggesting a defenceman should win the MVP this year.  I certainly wouldn’t want to make that case.  I think it is reasonably clear Mike Green has been the best defenceman in the league.  He has done so with a very good offensive season and pretty solid defensive numbers - but the clincher is his offence.  Nevertheless, it is likely he who will win the Norris and he who deserves it.

I would not want to make the claim that Green has been the MVP this season.  Frankly, I dont see how one would start.  I dont think he is among the top few contenders No defenceman is this year.

That doesn’t mean that defenceman have not been overlooked for the MVP in the past.  Last year, I thought Nicklas Lidstrom should have won.  It is a crime that he was not even nominated.

The list of questions you ask Who checks?  Who blocks shots?  Who has the better +/-?  Who can kill penalties? Faceoff %? Least turnovers and penalties leading to a goal, are rarely the most important questions in picking an MVP. 

Does Ovechkin check.? Yes.  He can play a physical defence when need be.  It is rarely his primary focus in a game and it shouldn’t be given his offensive prowess.  But the answer to your question of who checks, is basically everyone does.  If i had to guess I would say Duncan Keith has been the best checker in the league this year.  Is he your MVP?

Who blocks shots?  Blocked shots are relatively easy to measure but they do not correlate with winning or even defence very well.  Nicklas Lidstrom rarely blocks shots and he is one heck of a defender.  Who leads the NHL in blocked shots?  Zbynek Michalek.  Is he your MVP?

Who has the better +/-?  +/- is an interesting stat that can tell us a lot, but it is strongly context dependent.  Especially dependent upon how good your team is.  Who has the best +/-?  David Krejci.  Is he your MVP?

who can kill penalties?  An awful lot of players can.  Both Ovechkin and Malkin can, but they are not used in their team’s first unit for good reason.  Thir talents are best maximized in offensively.  Looking at this season, Scott Niedermayer has the most shorthanded time on the ice and some decent penalty kill numbers.  So he would be my best guess as the best penalty killer this season.  Is he your MVP?

Faceoff % is something that poorly correlates with winning.  It preferentially selects centres and not necessarily tose having good seasons defensively.  Rod Brind’Amour has the best faceoff percentage among players with a reasonaböle number of faceoffs.  Is he your MVP?  He is also among the worst +/- ratings in the league.

I wouldnt even know how to answer wo has the least turnovers and penalties leading to a goal.  Perhaps a pylon.  Likely somebody who has the puck and does creative things offensively will have turnovers as sometimes it fails.  And for a top scorer that doesn’t take away from their value.  If you look at the players with the most giveaways you get a list of all stars who are offensively creative.  Doing something offensively will lead to giveaways sometimes.  The least giveaways among players with a cosniderable amount of games?  How about Riley Cote.  He has one giveaway in 63 games.  I also think he has been the worst player to keep an NHL job this year.  Least penalties leading to a goal?  I dont immediately have that number of plenalties leading to a goal, but again it misses the point.  If a player draws penalties from opponents they can help their team more than the guy who never gets a penalty.  Or they might stop a sure goal with a penalty only to have one scored on the following power play.  Least penalties among those with cosniderable games?  Kyle Wellwood 4 PIMs in 71 games.  I have no idea if those penaöties led to goals or not and i dont think it matters.  It doesn’t make Wellwood a better or worse player if the Canucks power play does well when he is not a part of it.

That is not to say that defence isn’t important or that defence cannot win MVPs.  It can and should more often than it does.  The ways you attempted to find it generally are poor ones.  The main reason the top scorer is automatically an MVP candidate is that scoring is the stat that best correlates with winning (at least for a non-goalie).  And this season the most valuable players have been the two top scorers.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 04/06/09 at 08:41 AM ET