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There’s been some discussion lately about who should be the nominees for the league MVP, or the Hart trophy winner. While the idea of heart is one that seems to be a quality wanted in any leader of an NHL team it’s not a measurable quality, it’s subjective. As for an MVP and what requirements are necessary to determine who is deemed worthy of the award it’s a bit like choosing the Pope, we only know after the vote.
The Hart Memorial Trophy, originally known as the Hart Trophy, the "oldest and most prestigious individual award in hockey", is awarded annually to the "player judged most valuable to his team" in the National Hockey League
A lot of noise has been made about the season Tavares has had, and rightfully so, the former first overall pick is developing into the player most thought he would become. In fact it’s the recent abuse I’ve received from Islanders fans, which got me thinking- what makes Taveres so special? To take it a step further, Winnipeg Free Press columnist Gary Lawless also commented on the Hart race and suggested that Andrew Ladd, captain of the Jets be in the conversation as well should the team make the post season.
I started this piece awhile ago wanting to see who would be the finalists and now we know: the finalists are Crosby, Ovechkin and Tavares
So let’s start with whom the candidates could be, we can go long list first.
Crosby and Toews are obvious choices.
Ovechkin seems worthy of mention
Tavares because this won’t be fun without discussing him
Getzlaf as Anaheim is having a huge resurgence
Ladd can be added to and we’ll see if he holds up.
What I’ll do is look at some stats for each and then compare them to some slightly fancier stats.
The first is the standard line of GP, goals, assists, points and +/-
Crosby 36 15 41 56 +26
Toews 47 23 25 48 +28
Ovechkin 48 32 24 56 +2
Tavares 48 28 19 47 -2
Getzlaf 44 15 34 49 +14
Ladd 45, 18, 28, 46 +10
So it’s easy to see that the plus-minus stat really has no value in determining some sort of merit in the Hart race. It’s all over the map and Anaheim has 6 fewer points than Pittsburgh so clearly the difference of 13 between Crosby and Getzlaf is not representative of the team success.
If goals were the deciding factor for MVP we probably wouldn’t need to have the Richard trophy. It does matter to total points but perhaps we need to look a little deeper into goals.
Ovechkin is the runaway leader of the bunch in scoring with Tavares being a close second at 26. The rest all hover between 14-21 scored. However let’s look at when the players are scoring their goals.
For this we’ll look at down by 2, down by 1, tied, ahead by 1, and game winning
Crosby 0, 2, 7, 4, 1
Toews 0, 5, 7, 4, 4
Oveckin 2, 4, 8, 4, 4
Tavares 2, 4, 8, 8, 5
Getzlaf 1, 3, 5, 2, 2
Ladd 2, 1, 9, 4, 4,
When a team is down by two goals Ovechkin, Tavares and Ladd lead when down by one goal Toews, Ovechkin, Tavares, and Getzlaf all are strong in getting their team back in the game. When tied Ladd, Ovechkin, Tavares, Toews and Crosby are all scoring huge goals for their team and when leading by one Tavares stands tall, and alone, at 8 insurance goals while also leading in game-winning goals with Toews, Ovechkin, and Ladd all one behind.
After looking at the splits I would then rank the players as follows:
Tavares
Ovechkin
Ladd
Toews
Crosby
Getzlaf
While I don’t have splits for first and second assists I think we can look at some other aspects of assists as to how the relate to points. Let’s look at even strength goals, assists and points and TOI vs PP and PK.
Crosby
Toews
Ovechkin
Tavares
Getzlaf
Ladd
In the list above there is only one other player who scores more than 80% of their points at even strength than Andrew Ladd and that is Toews.
After that consider the amount of ice time per game each player plays, only Ladd and Toews are below 16 minutes a game at ES.
Now look at PP time. Ladd is the lowest of the bunch and he plays the second most time on the PK after Getzlaf and is tied with Toews at 1:26 per game.
The interesting aspect of all this is Crosby, Ovechkin and Tavares all play less than a minute per game when their team is short-handed. Not all teams use their stars on the PK and Winnipeg without a deeper line up is almost forced to use Ladd to some degree. Like Toews though, it’s a mark of a consistent, trusted and complete player- one who is extremely valuable to their team.
It’s easy to see that the numbers support a case for Ladd, even if you dive into some of the more complex analytics. I have looked at them and in some cases Ladd is equal to or stronger than the other.
However, in the end the team’s performance will ultimately determine who is worthy of being a finalist, and that’s okay. But if you are talking about value to a team there is no reason not to have Andrew Ladd in your list of most valuable players- the numbers and his play this season certainly warrant that much praise, perhaps more than Tavares.
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • 
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