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| Despite the concussions he's suffered over the years, Sidney Crosby still owns the NHL. (Credits: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) |
With the lockout-shortened season a little more than halfway through, we decided it was time to hand out some premature hardware, make some sweeping judgments, and offer up some unreliable predictions. With everyone filling out brackets right now, it’s just that time of the year.
Today, we’ll name our midseason MVP, Vezina, Rookie of the Year, and Defenseman of the Year.
Thursday, we’ll take a look at which teams/players have been the biggest surprises/disappointments, and make some Stanley Cup predictions.
Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP): Sidney Crosby
Runners-Up: Patrick Kane (CHI), Ryan Getzlaf (ANA)
In the beginning of the year, all the talk surrounding Penguins star Sidney Crosby, fresh off two concussion-plagued seasons, centered on his head. Could he stay healthy, the pundits asked. Could he make it through even 48 games, never mind 82? Could he play with the same drive and the same speed that makes him the dominant force he is? Or would he be on and off the IR? Would he be graceful, but tentative; talented, but timid?
Crosby has answered those questions with brilliant play, the kind evocative of hockey-wizards Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, and now all the talk surrounding him centers on just how definitively he is back. Through the Penguins first 30 games, of which he has not missed one, Crosby has racked up 13 goals and 35 assists for 48 points. His point-per-game pace of 1.6 is stratospheric in the post-90’s NHL, and works out to 131 points over an 82 game season. No one has eclipsed that total since Lemieux posted 161 points in the 1995-96 season. (And those were the days when 100-point seasons came along like the local 5-train on the NYC subway, and a few brave souls were still running around without helmets.) But even more indicative of Crosby’s dominance this season, of his value to the Penguins, is the way he has turned linemates Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis into offensive vending machines. Neither Kunitz nor Dupuis has ever scored 30 goals in a season, but since being united with Pittsburgh’s playmaking virtuoso the two are spitting out goals like seasoned snipers. Kunitz’s 18 goals rank second in the NHL and Dupuis’ 14 are tied for 8th, and Crosby has assisted on 23 out of those combined 32. They are both on pace to score more goals in this 48-game season than they ever have in an 82-game season. I have to believe that even I, as an intramural playmaker, could light the lamp a few times if I had Crosby feeding me the puck.
Vezina Trophy: Tuukka Rask (BOS)
Runners-Up: Craig Anderson (OTT), Corey Crawford (CHI)
How about these bracket-busting names? Anderson and Crawford in Vezina discussion? That’s Butler and VCU going to the Final Four. Rask leading the pack? That’s Gonzaga ranking atop the national polls. And no sign of household names like Henrik Lundqvist, Pekka Rinne, Ryan Miller and Cam Ward? Welcome to the 2013 NHL season.
We should first say that before Anderson went down with an ankle injury in late February, he was separating himself from the pack like Lance Armstrong in the Alps. His 1.49 Goals Against Average and .952 Save Percentage, unprecedented numbers for any goalie of any era, were not simply Vezina-worthy but Hart Memorial-worthy as well. But the ankle sprain has kept him out for longer than expected, and opened the door for other netminders to enter the discussion. Rask did not baulk when the opportunity presented itself.
When Anderson was laid up on February 21, Rask had 8 wins through 11 games, and a 2.09 GAA to go along with a .919 save percentage. Impressive numbers for sure, though not quite in that upper echelon where stat-perusers stop to take a second look. In the 9 games since then, all he’s done is post a 1.77 GAA and sterling .937 save percentage, while picking up 6 more wins along the way. To say Rask has merely entered the Vezina discussion is to say Black Friday shoppers amicably filed in to the Wal-Mart when the store opened. No, Rask, like his Black Friday counterparts, has stormed onto the scene, trampling a few others in front of him in the process. And as with all individual awards, its important to consider where Rask’s team sits in the standings: 2nd place in the Northeast Division, 4th place in the Eastern Conference and just a point behind the Canadiens with a game in hand. Rask has been the key in keeping Montreal within reach, steadying a Bruins team that has lately allowed more shots against per game, and giving them a chance to win just about every night.
If Anderson picks up where he left off though when he returns, we’ll have an exciting two-horse race to the finish.
Calder Memorial Trophy (Rookie of the Year): Cory Conacher (TBL)
For all the preseason hype over Russian rookie sensations Vladimir Tarasenko and Nail Yakupov, it has actually been North-American Cory Conacher who has turned the most heads in his first year. Conacher, a diminutive 23-year old out of Canisius College, raced out of the gates with 12 points in his first 7 games, excelling on a line with Steven Stamkos and Teddy Purcell. He has since upped his points total to 21, good for first among all rookies. Unlike Tarasenko, Yakupov, Schultz and Huberdeau, Conacher was not selected in the first round of the NHL Draft…or any round after it. His development was not followed like a presidential campaign, his League debut not celebrated like an inauguration. Sure, Conacher supremely impressed with his 80-point season with the Norfolk Admirals of the AHL last year, but he was never regarded as one of those blue-blooded prospects, and serves as a refreshing reminder that players can still surprise us. This all being said, Conacher will have to pick up his scoring pace (just three points in his last ten games) if he is to ward off Huberdeau, the gifted goal scorer for the lousy Florida Panthers, and Allen, the newest goalie revelation for the St. Louis Blues.
A word on Allen: It’s hard to know if this kid is here to stay – after all, the Blues thought they had struck gold last season with Brian Elliot, and now he ranks last and second-to-last among all goalies in save percentage and GAA, respectively – but what Allen’s s done so far is pretty astonishing. In 9 starts, the 22-year old rookie owns an 8-1 record, a 2.19 GAA and a .920 save percentage. And he is doing this all on a team that was presupposed to have the most firmly established goalie tandem in the NHL coming into the season. Indeed, if there was any team that had room for a breakout netminder when the season began, the St. Louis Blues were not it, which gives you an idea of how well Allen has played. He has forced Ken Hitchcock and the Blues to notice him.
James Norris Memorial Trophy (Best Defenseman): Kris Letang (PIT)
Runners-Up: Zdeno Chara (BOS), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (PHO)
The Norris Trophy has suffered something of an identity crisis lately. Only once in the past three years has it been awarded to a defenseman outside the top two in points for their position. And thus an honor that is said to be bestowed upon that defenseman who “demonstrates the greatest all-around ability in the position” has become congruous with the League’s best offensive defenseman. Players who dominate the defensive end of the rink are being skipped over for players who thrive in the offensive end of rink simply because there is more glamour in scoring goals than stopping them.
In coming up with the three nominees above, we tried to identify defensemen adept at creating offense and steadfast in shutting it down. So we turned to behindthenet.ca, an advanced metrics site, that keeps track of statistics such as the quality of competition a player faces. In this regard, there is no one more impressive than Chara, who faces the second-toughest quality of competition among all defensemen second only to Phanuef, and who has been on the ice for just 21 goals against the entire year. Phaneuf, on the other hand, has been on the ice for 41 goals against this year, which simply verifies the fact that playing against the best players does not make you one of them. Shutting them down does, and that’s what Chara – a cavernous black hole for all opposing goal scorers – has been doing for this Bruins team the past seven years. He also mans the point on their powerplay, and occasionally scores goals like this one. But his 13 points in 27 games fall somewhat drastically off the .60 point-per-game pace he set over his first six seasons in Boston, letting down an otherwise stellar Norris Trophy resume. Though Chara has excelled in his own end this year, more so than any other defensemen in the League, it is hard to give the Norris Trophy to a guy who ranks only 30th among defensemen in points.
The guy who ranks first in this category is the smooth-skating Letang, a player cut from the same mold as Bobby Orr. (Orr, though, created the mold; he was the mold itself. Important clarification because no defenseman will ever be the equal of Orr, even if many postdating him play like him.) Letang’s 28 points are five the better than the guy below him, Ryan Suter, and six the better than the guy a notch below that, Niklas Kronwall, but where Letang really separates himself from the League’s other high-scoring defensemen is in the plus/minus category. Even if it is a somewhat antiquated stat, plus/minus is still a reliable barometer for judging a player’s two-way game, and Letang sits at plus-11 while Suter and Kronwall come in at minus-3 and minus-7, respectively. Though he ranks a distant 49th to Chara in quality of competition faced, Letang is still a sound defender, as evidenced by his 25:32 minutes of ice time per night. (No player is going to hear his name called that often if he is not defensively responsible, unless he plays for the Florida Panthers.)
So Letang it is, but not simply on the merits of his offense. A leak in his defensive game and the door is open for either Chara or Ekman-Larsson.
More on deck Thursday.
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