I must admit to a little bemusement at the notion that if indeed Malkin is losing MVP votes because of the NHL’s marketing ‘machine’, that he’d be losing those votes to Ovechkin and not, you know, that other guy who plays for the Pens.  You see his name every once in a while.

Also, I’m a little parochial when it comes to these things, meaning that when I see how much better the West is than the East it’s hard for me to look at these big numbers East guys rack up and take them point-for-point as seriously as I would West numbers.  For instance, in Malkin’s 22 games against the bottom 6 Eastern teams he has 14 goals and 31 assists.  With the possible exception of Buffalo, those 6 teams are -atrocious- defensive clubs.  The West doesn’t have anything even remotely comparing to that kind of offensive buffet for scoring forwards to feast on, and those pathetic clubs usually boost stats across the league for opponents.

The Western Conference only has Chris Osgood.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 03/15/09 at 02:12 AM ET

Ovechkin has 10 game-winning goals.

Malkin has 3.

Posted by PRC. on 03/15/09 at 12:15 PM ET

Game winning goals are a pretty poor stat.  If a team takes a 4--0 lead at the beginning of a game and then allows a couple goals to win 4-2, the guy who scored the third goal (which was not exactly meaningful at that time) gets a game winning goal.

So what?

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 03/15/09 at 12:19 PM ET

Alex also has 24 third period/OT goals, kills penalties and backchecks, something Malkin does not do. Throw in the hits and the goals differential and this is an easy call.

Posted by eric from baltimore on 03/15/09 at 01:32 PM ET

Malkin backchecks too.  Malkin kills penalties too (in fact he has spent about 13 minutes more than Ovechkin killing penalties this season).

Without even verifying your number of third period goals, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ovechkin has more X kind of goals whatever you chose X to be (afterall he has more goals).  And very likely Malkin has more X kind of assists and X kind of points.  And that kind of argument really proves little.

I think it is an easy call for you because your home team is the Washington Capitals.  May be a bias showing.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 03/15/09 at 01:42 PM ET

When Ovechkin wins his 2nd Hart in a row are the voters “homers” too? Or just more knowledgeable than you?

Posted by eric from baltimore on 03/15/09 at 03:15 PM ET

There’s a lot to say about this post, so bear with me.  Looking at some numbers, I was surprised to find Malkin actually is a pretty reasonable choice for the Hart.  HockeyinHD raises a good point, but that would count against Ovechkin, too.  And Parise, for that matter.  Which just leaves… Datsyuk.

Malkin’s strong, but comparing his physical play to Ovechkin’s is misinformed or disingenuous.  Ovechkin has 219 hits, seventh overall.  Malkin has 67, tying him for 249th.  I don’t think there’s much value in those 152 extra hits by Ovechkin, but they’re there regardless.

Malkin has a point lead, but his points per game is almost non-existant.  1.37 for Malkin, but 1.36 for Crosby, 1.35 for Semin, and 1.33 for Ovechkin.  Next is Datsyuk at 1.23.

Malkin only has 17 even-strength goals, when goals are harder to come by.  Teammate Crosby has a surprising 24--he’s much more of a goal scorer than he gets credit for.  To Malkin’s credit, though, he leads the league by a country mile with 46 even strength assists--and most of them are first assists, too.

All in all, I think Crosby is a better choice than Malkin.  His line has generated many more shots at even strength.  In fact, with Malkin on the ice, the Penguins only get 23.6 shots per 60 minutes, well below the team average.  Crosby leads the Penguins with 28.2.  Malkin has a edge in points per ES ice time over Crosby, but it’s basically a wash.  What that means is that Malkin has probably been luckier--pucks have gone in for his line but not for Crosby’s line.  It’s possible that Malkin’s elite passing is causing that higher shooting percentage, but Malkin didn’t fit the profile of a Thornton-type playmaker last season, so I’m skeptical of his emergence as one this season.  The biggest argument in favour of Malkin is that he’s leading the point race, but the biggest reason he’s leading the point race is because he’s played the most games.

And for what it’s worth, I’m not convinced Ovechkin is a better choice than Crosby.  But it’s hard to argue with 0.73 goals per game when nobody else is even at 0.6, so I’m fine with either winning.

And I still think Datsyuk should win it.

Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 03/15/09 at 07:46 PM ET

The problem with all of this stuff is that 90% of voters have no real grasp of the realities of Hockey.  They vote point totals, or some other equally obvious and sadly pedantic standard they set for themselves.  That’s kind of why Selke winners average 20 some goals every year, Norris winners usually have 60+ points, blah blah blah.  The point totals are easy, so people just use those to make their decisions for them.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 03/15/09 at 09:36 PM ET

The West isa a lower scoring conference than the East.  That is a legitiamte reason to look at West Conference scorers as potential MVP candidates even if they do not have as many points as their East Conference counterparts.  That is not a reason to autromatically assume the West Conference top scorer must be a better player despite lower scoring numbers.

If we look at scoring figures, so far this year the average East Conference team has 203.3 goals scored.  The average West Conference team has 199.3 goals scored.  The difference between them is about 2%.  We can thus assume that a difference in scoring on the order of about 2% is explained by being in the West Conference.

If we look only at scoring figures, Malkin has 97 points right now.  Datsyuk has 85.  That puts Datsyuk over 12% behind.  The lower scoring conference does not explain that difference.  It is not nearly a big enough factor.

Any argument for Datsyuk deserving MVP must go well beyond this argument.  Although I concede that Datsyuk is a better defensive player, I don’t think it is enough to make up the difference.  Both Malkin and Ovechkin have been good defensively this year with significantly more scoring and that is why I would put them ahead of Datsyuk in an MVP race.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 03/16/09 at 01:41 AM ET

If we look at scoring figures, so far this year the average East Conference team has 203.3 goals scored.  The average West Conference team has 199.3 goals scored.  The difference between them is about 2%.  We can thus assume that a difference in scoring on the order of about 2% is explained by being in the West Conference.

The problem your correlary has is that you’re comparing scoring equally between conferences while ignoring the teams which that scoring is happening against.

For instance, that would be like me comparing what a player scores against opponents in the Big East to what a player scores against teams in the NBA.  There’s a pronounced strength of competition disparity at play.

In other words, it’s not point for point comparable.  One set of teams is inferior to another set of teams, so just looking at how many points are scored in each population without any consideration for the difference in difficulty between populations creates a flawed sample.

The West is 134-95-25 against the East, so I think we can make the general case that top to bottom the West is better.

In 16 games against the West Malkin has 5 goals and 15 assists, so he averages a very nice 1.25 points a game, but only .31 goals a game.  Against the East, Malkin has 55 games with 25 goals and 52 assists… which comes out to 1.4 points a game and .45 goals a game.

So, just looking at Malkin we see that against the West he averages 10.7% fewer points and 31% fewer goals against the West than he does against the East.

Now, that’s far from a conclusive example because we can look at a guy from the West and see that there’s an opposite breakdown.  Datsyuk, for instance, does a bunch better statistically against West teams than East teams.  So, those are two conflicting data points, but given the success of one conference against the other as a whole I think it’s safe to presume that Datsyuk is more of an anomaly than a representative of the typical sample.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 03/16/09 at 11:24 AM ET

1) Sorry Puck Ovechkin wins it again...easily. Why? he is not only leading in goals, he is blowing away the competition in that MOST important of stats.
2) How many players in NHL HISTORY have won the goal scoring title back to back by double digits? 5 Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Phil Esposito, Mario Lemieux, and Brett Hull.
3) Add to that the game winners (yes its not the most important stat, but he DOES have more than 1/2 his goals in the 3rd period when the game is usually on the line.  Also the hits shows he is probably one of the most dominating power forwards the league has ever seen.

Posted by Faux Rumors from Globally- Here, there, Everywhere on 03/16/09 at 11:51 AM ET

Hockey in HD:  It is interesting how your argument breaks down.  Dastyuk has 0.92 points per game against the East Conference.  He has 1.32 points per game vs. the west.

Against the West, Malkin and Datsyuk are essentially tied.  If Malkin had one more point they would be tied.  That is no meaningful difference.  Against the East, Malkin is a clear winner. 

This argument does not support Datsyuk at all.  However, the problem in this argument is it magnifies the results in the few inter--conference games beyond their real importance.

Faux:  Essentially your argument stated three ways is that Ovechkin is a better goal scorer.  Nobody argues that point.  That alone does not guarantee an MVP.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 03/16/09 at 01:13 PM ET

This argument does not support Datsyuk at all.  However, the problem in this argument is it magnifies the results in the few inter--conference games beyond their real importance.

...as opposed to your idea, essentially ignoring a moderately large overall gap between Conferences?

Like I said, most people are just going to look at the point totals and vote that way… but it’s not really a big deal.  That’s the way awards have been getting handed out for years.  Things like how a player plays defense are either not considered or given such slight weight that they may as well not be.  I mean, any comparison of Malkin and Datsyuk’s defensive games which doesn’t include the phrase ‘chasm of difference’ isn’t really doing the comparison justice, IMO.

Against current playoff teams in their respective conferences, Malkin (29 games) has 10 goals and 19 assists.  Datsyuk (33 games) has 14 goals and 29 assists.

But these are stats, and it’s always easy to find a stat to support what you want supported.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 03/16/09 at 05:27 PM ET

western players score easier on western teams because they know them better, not because eastern teams are harder to score on (yes I switched the argument aroun I know) and Vice Versa (see, I knew I did)

I think a lack of experience against temas from the other conference is a more correct explanation. I know the west plays a more physical game than the east but i don’t believ more hits equals better defense…

Anyhow, I’m not gonna throwe some stats out because I don’t keep up with them, just adding my 2 cents to the fire.

Posted by fish from Antwerp, Belgium on 03/17/09 at 10:18 AM ET