NHL Awards: PHBA Edition

It’s time for something new. 

I’m sure you guys have heard of the PHWA before, right? The
Pro Hockey Writers Association? You know, those guys who gave Ovechkin an award
for a position he didn’t really play last year? Yeah. Those guys. Well as great
as some of them are, a few of us in the blogging world have lost some faith in their
abilities.

Thus, the fine gentlemen over at The Royal Half developed the
PHBA. That’s right folks, the Professional Hockey Bloggers Association.  As part of their duties, they decided all members would include a vote in this year’s NHL Awards (or at least our version of them), and were kind enough to include us at Jets Nation in the voting process.

I completed the ballot on behalf of us here at Jets Nation,
so here are my picks in comparison to the rest of the PHBA.

 

Almost everybody agreed that Sidney Crosby was the league
MVP this season.  That really isn’t too
surprising considering his season.  Crosby
led the league in assists and points while playing some of the harder minutes
in Pittsburgh, and is a pretty damn good possession player in doing so.  He’s the best player from Canada, the best
player in the NHL, and quite possibly the best player in the world. Not getting
the MVP would just be silly.

I guess I got Team Canada syndrome a little bit with Claude
Giroux.  Nothing against the guy, he’s
definitely the man in Philadelphia and one of the best players in the league,
but I just decided to go in another direction. 
Maybe it was my Winnipeg bias towards Toews acting up a little bit.  

I’m kind of surprised that Joe Thornton wasn’t on more
people’s ballots.  He was the best
possession forward (by a large margin) on one of the league’s best possession
teams, and was firmly planted right behind Crosby in assists.  Sure he didn’t put the puck in the net much
himself, but when you only score 11 goals and still find yourself 13th
in league scoring, you’re doing something right.

 

This was far and away the hardest choice for me.  I really don’t know how to judge how much of
a “gentlemanly conduct” in a bunch of guys I’ve never had a chance to talk to,
so I guess you have to rely pretty heavily on the “sportsmanship” side of things.  This leaves me relying pretty heavily on
penalty minute numbers, explaining why Ryan O’Reilly ended up winning (and will
likely win the award from the PHWA as well). 

But wait, I didn’t vote him first overall myself…

Well, I took my personal perception of guys into account for
my votes.  (Shut up, I can do what I want
to.) This led to me bumping “Mr. Sign an offer sheet and force the Avs to pay
me lots” down to second for the badass Anze Kopitar (70 points, 24PIMs), and
completely leaving Marty St. Louis off of my list.

In all honesty it didn’t really matter where else my picks
went, as this was Ryan O’Reilly’s award regardless.  You can tell a lot of us felt this way, as
there was a pretty wide variety of selections on the final list.  I decided to toss Michael Frolik in there for
his 42 point, 12 PIM season, and the always classy Teemu Selanne because I’m
from Winnipeg and will always love the guy.

 

As wide open and exhaustive the list of Lady Byng candidates
was, the Vezina was pretty damn short. 
As it should be, considering the real factors are pretty easily
displayed with numbers.  For my picks, I
took into consideration how dominant possession wise each respective
goaltenders team was, and shifted guys a few spots accordingly. 

Varlamov was a huge reason as to why the Avalanche were able
to make the playoffs, and despite his off-ice issues he is well deserving of a
Vezina win.  He finished the season  a mere 0.003% behind Rask in save percentage
despite facing 300+ more shots in five more games.  Not to mention he didn’t get the privilege of
playing behind Zdeno Chara and the Boston Bruins defense.  I see Rask as a hell of a goaltender and
worthy of a nomination, but there are some other goalies who performed pretty
damn well for it as well.

If you watched the Leafs at all this season, you know how
terrible defensively they were.  Bernier
was forced to stand on his head almost every game, and still managed to put
together a .923 Sv%.  I love me some
James Reimer and Phil Kessel, but Bernier is without question the Leafs MVP this
season, and is more than worthy of a Vezina nod. 

 

Patrice Bergeron is an animal.  Just a complete animal.  You see it when you watch him play, but his
numbers are absolutely staggering to look at. 
The guy has a Relative Corsi Percetnage of 9.7% on the Boston Bruins for
goodness sake.  While playing the hardest
minutes on the team.  He was on the ice
for 1157 shot attempts for, and a mere 733 shot attempts against.  I probably should have included Anze Kopitar
on my list, but when your entire team finished the season with above 50% O-Zone
starts it’s hard to pick out one guy (although he did play the toughest minutes
of the bunch).

I through Jonathan Toews number two on my list, but after a
recent discussion I’ve had with Garret Hohl of Arctic Ice Hockey, I would
probably bump him down a couple spots. 
While Toews plays against some tougher competition for the Blackhawks,
he gets extremely beneficial zone starts, which tend to be more indicative of
the actual difficulty of a player’s TOI. 
He still dominated possession wise, and is a solid two way guy, but not
to the extreme of many others.

I felt it pretty necessary to give Bryan Little a nod
here.  He actually received a few other 4th
and 5th place votes, which left me feeling quite pleased that people
might actually be taking note of the guy. 
He plays some of the toughest minutes for the Jets, is one of the best possession
players, and scores a lot of points while doing so.  He is well deserving of some recognition in
this league.

Overall, I find both my and the PHBA choices as pretty darn
telling of the league right now.  A bunch
of players from the Western Conference, and a couple Boston Bruins.

 

Nathan MacKinnon is pretty good at hockeying.  If there was any question before, his performance
in the first round secured it (these picks were in before that time by the
way).  Sixty-three points in your rookie
season will go a pretty far way in making Avs fans forget about the disaster of
a season they had last year.  I expected
the kid to do well this season, but he dominated.  It’s going to be fun having him in the
Central for the next 15-20 years.

I was honestly pretty disappointed that Trouba finished 7th
in voting.  At minimum I thought the guy
would be top five, and likely ahead of Olli Matta.  In my opinion, coming into the NHL as a
rookie defenseman is extremely difficult. 
Yet Trouba came in, put up 29 points in 65 games, was arguably the Jets
second best defenseman this year (while being tied to Stuart), and played some
pretty tough minutes.  Nothing against
Nathan MacKinnon (or any of the other nominees), he deserves his recognition
and this award, but it bothers me how often it goes to forwards.

I was glad to see Torey Krug get a bit of attention.  Despite playing on the Bruins (that’s why I
snuck him below Trouba), he was a monster on the power play all season.  The kid has a cannon from the point, and will
likely be a Norris candidate in the future.

 

I get it. People like handing this award out to high scoring
defensemen. Doesn’t mean I have to agree or like it.  Personally, I feel like the Norris needs to
start shifting back to defensemen that play tough minutes, and excel in those
minutes.  Points are clearly something to
consider, but I don’t see them as the end-all-be-all. 

Take a look at these usage charts:

My point is this. Clearly these are all pretty deserving
defensemen. They are almost all great possession wise (Weber slipped up a bit,
but he plays some of the toughest minutes). 
But if you are giving out an award for the best of the best, I think it
should be going to the guy who keeps the puck in the opponent’s end of the ice
while playing against their best guys. Mark Giordano is that guy (his 47 points
don’t hurt either).  He had a hell of a
season, and deserves recognition for it.  

 

I partially understand why Patrick Roy was taken.  I mean, the Avs had a huge turn around in the
standings this year.  But I just can’t
ignore the fact that they were one of the worst possession teams in the league,
and rode very high shooting percentages and a spectacular goaltender the entire
way.  I’m sure folks who watch the
Avalanche on a regular basis could talk more to the effects he had in regards
to systems play, but I still question how good this team will be next
year.  Can they sustain the success?  Will they change their ways? Or will they
become another loaded with talent flub like the Edmonton Oilers?

Mike Babcock on the other hand, had a team that was decimated
with injuries all year long.  Far too
often finding themselves without the likes of Zetterberg and Datsyuk and icing
a lineup that reflected the Grand Rapids Griffins on a regular basis.  People were certain that this would be the
year that the Red Wings missed the playoffs in over 20 years.  Instead, you found a top half of the league possession
team, who managed to pull themselves into the playoffs. AGAIN.

It’s a travesty that Babcock doesn’t already have an Adams.
This year is as good as any to give him one. He deserves it.

So, am I completely wrong here?  Do you agree with me completely? (You should,
I’m a smrt dude). Let me know in the comments section!