Did an East Coast bias, or just a good, not great, season, keep Anaheim’s captain out of the running?
When the finalists for the 2012-2013 Hart Trophy were announced by the NHL, Ryan Getzlaf was disappointed that Chicago’s Jonathan Toews was not in the running.
“We were pretty well aware that it was going to be all East this year,” Getzlaf told the media. “That’s just the way it is.”
While some people scoffed at Getzlaf’s implication that there is an East Coast bias when it comes to the media in the hockey world, the all East phenomena occurred once again this season:
ICYMI: Ovechkin, Price, Tavares named Hart Trophy finalists. http://t.co/8MEzkkqb2H pic.twitter.com/yiyCXyCSj9
— NHL (@NHL) April 30, 2015
Hmm.
Let’s ignore the fact that Jamie Benn, the NHL scoring leader, was left off of this list; he did, after all, get nominated for the Ted Lindsay Award, which is handed out to the league’s most outstanding player. Besides, the Dallas Stars failed to make the playoffs, and like it or not, awards such as the Hart Trophy tend to be reserved for wining players on winning teams.
Ryan Getzlaf was the best player on the best team in the Western Conference, though – did John Tavares really do more to earn one of the three finalist spots over Getzlaf? Or do we have another year in which the media fixates its attention on the Eastern Conference, simply because there are more teams (17) in the East than the West, and the games are easier to watch because they start earlier?
The Numbers
The first place we should start if we are trying to build a case for Ryan Getzlaf earning a spot among the Hart Trophy finalists over John Tavares, or vice versa, is stats. Here are the regular season stats of these two superstars:
Looking at the numbers, it seems pretty clear that Tavares had a better season, which combined with the fact that his team is all-around weaker than the supporting cast Getzlaf pays with, would seem to imply that Tavares is more valuable to the Islanders than Getzlaf is to the Ducks, right?
But wait – was Tavares actually working with a weaker cast? The Islanders skated six players who topped 40 points this season; the Ducks, three. All told, the Ducks had ten players score 10+ points over the season, while the Islanders had nine – a negligible difference, if you ask me.
There are also some other numbers to consider here. Numbers love offensive-minded players such as Tavares – Getzlaf is just not going to put as many pucks in the back of the net as Tavares. However, Getzlaf blocked 95 shots this season, almost three times as many as Tavares (37). This is due to the fact that Getzlaf is a much better two-way player than Tavares is. The Ducks rely on their captain to score, create scoring opportunities, AND play tough defensive, as evidenced by his defensive zone start percentage of 54.7% (Tavares only started his shifts in the defensive zone 47.1% of the time).
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I’m not trying to poop on the season John Tavares had – he’s clearly a huge reason why the Islanders made the playoffs this year. However, I find it disappointing that it so easy for the media to default to someone like Tavares, simply because of his offensive numbers (and possibly because it’s easier to catch Islanders games because of their 7 or 7:30 East Coast starting time).
Getzlaf may not have had the numbers he put up last season (31-56-87), but the Hart Trophy is reserved for the NHL’s most valuable player, not outstanding, and it’s hard to argue that Getzlaf isn’t one of the three most valuable players in the NHL. He’s the best player on one of the NHL’s best teams, and his postseason performance is cementing that. (Yes, I’m aware postseason success is not a factor in the voting, but it certainly supports my argument.) I’m inclined to feel like Getzlaf had just as good a reason to be considered a finalist as Tavares, and yes, I do believe the media needs to at least make an effort to include players from both Conferences, unless you have three absolutely cut-and-dry candidates.
We’re curious as to what you guys think, so vote on whether you felt Getzlaf should have been a finalist for the Hart Trophy, or whether you feel his season did not quite merit the nod.