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NHL Award Finalists

CarltonTheBear

CarltonTheBear

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The finalists for the Lady Byng Trophy were announced today:

Patrick Marleau, Ryan O'Reilly and Martin St. Louis

I'm with Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski on this one. How the PHWA didn't get Teemu Selanne involved here as a farewell is beyond me.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
How the PHWA didn't get Teemu Selanne involved here as a farewell is beyond me.
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See I disagree.  The award says "player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability" and, well, Selanne was 268th in points this season.

I understand if you think the awards are meaningless or that they don't always follow the descriptions, or just going on sentimentality alone, but if I'm going based on what the NHL says the award is for, I don't see how he qualifies based on this season.
 
Potvin29 said:
I understand if you think the awards are meaningless or that they don't always follow the descriptions, or just going on sentimentality alone, but if I'm going based on what the NHL says the award is for, I don't see how he qualifies based on this season.
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It's those 2 things. Nobody cares about the Lady Byng in particular and everybody loves Teemu.

I'm definitely not going to lose any sleep over this, it just would have been a nice gesture.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Potvin29 said:
I understand if you think the awards are meaningless or that they don't always follow the descriptions, or just going on sentimentality alone, but if I'm going based on what the NHL says the award is for, I don't see how he qualifies based on this season.
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It's those 2 things. Nobody cares about the Lady Byng in particular and everybody loves Teemu.

I'm definitely not going to lose any sleep over this, it just would have been a nice gesture.
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Well it is the PHWA - all you need to know right there.
 
I might be wrong on this one, but I'm pretty sure that the "finalists" are just the players who finished in the top three of votes.  Essentially, the winner has already been chosen based on voting, but to add drama to the awards, they release the top three vote getter's names and say they are finalists.

So for all we know Teemu might have received the 4th most amount of votes, for- as you put it- sentiment alone. 
 
The Lady Byng voting process has always bugged me in general though. Writers basically just look for the best points to PIM ratio. And I think that's kinda what gives it a bum wrap. You can be a physical player and still display good sportsmanship. I've seen Jarome Iginla on a number of peoples ballots and think he's a pretty good example. Or on the flip-side look at Duncan Keith. 2nd in points among defencemen with the lowest PIM total of anybody else in the top-14. Anybody watching the playoffs knows that he's far from a gentlemanly player. Did he get votes for the Byng?
 
Some other award finalists:

Selke:
Bergeron, Kopitar, Toews

Calder:
Johnson, MacKinnon, Palat

Vezina:
Bishop, Rask, Varlamov
 
CarltonTheBear said:
The Lady Byng voting process has always bugged me in general though.
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The award itself is stupid. They have the Clancy, they have the Masterson...I think those two have "Plays hockey and isn't a terrible human being" angle covered.
 
Chara, Keith, and Weber got the Norris noms. Interesting that Karlsson's 74 points isn't as impressive as it was a couple of seasons ago.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Chara, Keith, and Weber got the Norris noms. Interesting that Karlsson's 74 points isn't as impressive as it was a couple of seasons ago.
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What? No Pernell? I can hear the hab fans running towards the NHL offices with pitchforks in hand!

Just as a side note - I googled the meaning of the name "Pernell" - It means "country bumpkin" lol
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Chara, Keith, and Weber got the Norris noms. Interesting that Karlsson's 74 points isn't as impressive as it was a couple of seasons ago.
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The way he plays when the other team has the puck is really starting to get noticed. I think teams started to take advantage of that, as he was exposed quite frequently in the sens games I saw. Combine that with his team missing the playoffs and the gap between him and the next highest scoring defenceman not being 25 points this season, and, well, you have a perfect recipe for not being in the top 3 vote getters.
 
So Giroux goes the first 15 games doing nothing and gets a Hart nomination. Kessel dominates the year until the final 15'ish, and doesn't.

Hrumph.
 
Corn Flake said:
So Giroux goes the first 15 games doing nothing and gets a Hart nomination. Kessel dominates the year until the final 15'ish, and doesn't.

Hrumph.
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Giroux did finish with 6 more points than Kessel, and his team finished 12 points higher in the standings. Phil also should probably share the team MVP award with Bernier, whereas Giroux was Philly's clear-cut guy. Not to diminish what Kessel did at all for us this year, but I'm fine with these 3 finalists.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Giroux did finish with 6 more points than Kessel, and his team finished 12 points higher in the standings. Phil also should probably share the team MVP award with Bernier, whereas Giroux was Philly's clear-cut guy. Not to diminish what Kessel did at all for us this year, but I'm fine with these 3 finalists.
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Yeah, it's pretty hard to argue with any of these three. Outside of maybe Kopitar, Bishop and Seguin I'm not sure who else really has a case.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Yeah, it's pretty hard to argue with any of these three. Outside of maybe Kopitar, Bishop and Seguin I'm not sure who else really has a case.
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Varlamov would be in the same boat as Bishop, but goalies always have a tough time with this award.
 
Nik the Trik said:
I'd bet top 20 but not top 10.
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Checking out the voting results from the last 2 seasons where Kessel was top-10 in scoring, I was surprised to see that he didn't receive a single Hart vote in either season. I guess I can understand 11-12 as the team missed the playoffs, but last season? Even Pascal freakin' Dupuis received a 5th place vote.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Checking out the voting results from the last 2 seasons where Kessel was top-10 in scoring, I was surprised to see that he didn't receive a single Hart vote in either season. I guess I can understand 11-12 as the team missed the playoffs, but last season? Even Pascal freakin' Dupuis received a 5th place vote.
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Yeah, although writers only put 5 on their ballot, right? So being as Kessel wasn't a top 5 scorer in either year I think it'd be pretty hard to make that justification. Obviously the Dupuis thing defies explanation except it is the same group who though Ovechkin was the best Right and Left winger in the league.
 
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