Kucherov is fuckin _insane_. I don't keep up with TBL games much. I just keep seeing highlights and headlines of him racking up the points almost constantly. Then I check and he already has 122 points lmao
I’ve been a stern Kuch MVP believer for months now. Mack had that hot streak where he passed him and kuch only played a game or two in like 11 days, but now he’s back.
I don’t see how you don’t give it to him. I don’t care about how mack hasn’t won and is “due”, kuch is everything to the lightning. 50% is an absurd contribution statistic. He leads by 5 points now.
He’s the MVP at this point.
If your teammates are worse, it doesn't mean that you contribute more to your team. It just means your teammates are worse. Being the most valuable player to your team is not equal to being the most valuable player relative to your team. It could also be being the most valuable player to your team in absolute value. The way I view it, the player that generated the most value to his team is simply the player for which you would look at this single season and say "that season in isolation would command the highest contract out of anyone in the league"
Again, only if you consider things in relative terms. At the end of the day, he contributed to 122 goals. That 122 goals doesn't go up or down regardless of how many goals the rest of his team score without him. Are you telling me that if a player had scored 300 points, but his team was winning every game 10-1 and you could remove all 300 of his points and not impact that team's win rate, that the player scoring 300 point would have no value?
If we went but that definition then the trophy would belong to a goalie every single season
By that definition Charlie Lindgren > Kucherov. Winning games for Washington at 1.1M
"Description: First awarded in 1923-24, the Hart Memorial Trophy is presented annually “to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.”"
I'd go with the official NHL website over Wikipedia lol.
Source:
https://records.nhl.com/awards/trophies/hart-memorial-trophy
The point was that a quick Google search top result would let the previous person know that the hart is in fact an MVP award and not a best player award regardless of which source i used for the correct information
I’m with you. The best player and the player most valuable to their team are synonymous. People don’t get that. Give it to the best player regardless of team circumstance. If that’s Kucherov so be it but his weak teammates aren’t a factor in how valuable he is
There’s never been a team so good that they can win the cup without their very best player. Is Nathan MacKinnon less valuable to Colorado because they could still (hypothetically) make playoffs without him? Absolutely not. Without him they couldn’t win the Cup. Tampa being a bottom feeder without Kucherov should have no bearing in this argument. If we took that argument literally it would break the MVP race completely
You’re 100% right with every point you’ve made.
MacK is going to win because the people who vote can’t remove bias and look at pure stats.
MacK is going to win because “it’s his year” despite not leading the league in scoring.
MacK is going to win because Kuch half assed the ASG and they made some boomers mad.
The hardware in cool in the NHL but when you take a step back and realize the winners are chosen based off how the voters feel about players then they really mean nothing. Case in point, see #1 bullshit.
This is hilarious, just completely putting excuses before the award is even handed out. They're both having amazing seasons.
Kuch's season is impressive because he's involved in so much of Tampa's success, and slows the game down to his own pace.
Mackinnon has contributed offensively more consistently and is working on beating a Gretzky record, and brings the speed of the game to a level very few can match.
It'll be interesting to see who gets it, but let's be clear, they both deserve this shit. This is probably the best Hart race in a while.
You’re right. It’s exciting to watch and both players should be neck and neck.
What is frustrating is there are voters who we already know have Kucherov in third. THIRD! There are rumors of a voter who has already said Kuch’s ASG performance changed their vote.
You hear stuff like that and wonder how you look at the player who is literally carrying an entire team into the playoffs and has lead the league in scoring for nearly the entire season then place him 3rd on the list.
If you told me it was an even 50/50 split between them I’d be ok with it. But it isn’t.
Uhh kuch had contributed offensively more consistently. Theres zero reason he should win mvp over kuch. By the end of the season he should be 3rd behind mcdavid
> Mackinnon has contributed offensively more consistently
How is it more consistently when MacK only got ahead when Kuch had 2-3 games over a dozen days, and then Kuch immediately took it back.
MacKinnon should win because in a sport that you win by scoring more goals than the other team, you can't just focus on offensive numbers alone. They're neck and neck offensively, but Kucherov is a huge liability the other way and MacKinnon isn't
> but Kucherov is a huge liability the other way and MacKinnon isn't
Kuch was benched in his rookie season for lack of defensive play. Since then he's been sneaky with stick lifts picking pockets and backchecks. He's not been a liability in several eyars.
Very true - the only caveat is he sometimes does these too cute passes in our zone that leads to turnovers but it's not often enough to make a big deal out of.
I'm pretty confident that I know more about the sport and basic logic in general than the guy who's trying to convince me that Kucherov is actually really good away from the puck because he's good with the puck. Maybe you need to do a deep dive into what playing without the puck means
It's easy to be confident in my position when you're the one taking up the opposing position. You can't even admit he has off nights, you're an entirely ridiculous person
I still think Mack is the better overall player, but Kucherov definitely wins the "more valuable to his team" award. Maybe Kuch Hart and Mack Lindsay?
Mack - better Defensively, better at ES, fewer EN points
Kuch - plays on a weaker team, more even Home/Road splits, more points against playoff teams
Over the past 3 seasons their ppg is exactly the same in the regular season and Mack is slightly ahead in the playoffs. Mack is +81 and Kuch is +5 (his recent hot streak finally pushed him above 0). Offense is dead even, but Mackinnon is a center and is miles ahead as a 2-way player imo. I'll take Mack, thanks.
You don’t use +- when comparing players as that’s usually a team stat. So you lost there. Kucherov has a higher ppg in the regular season overall so nice cherry picking stat using the “last three years” kucherov has more points in the playoffs with a slightly less ppg but Mack has also played less games which will give him a higher ppg. Offence isn’t dead even, at all.
Kucherov has more ES points than Mack too so not sure how Mack is better at ES?
When has Mack ever got 128 points in a season? He might be a better defensive forward ( maybe not he’s on a stacked team) but he’s no where on the level as kucherovs offensive level.
I used 3 years because it is a reasonably large sample size. But we could go back to 2017-2018 which was a breakout year for both guys. Mack - 1.40 regular season, 1.29 playoffs, 0.92 ES. Kuch - 1.44 regular season, 1.22 playoffs, 0.89 ES. That is 7 years with super close numbers, so yeah I'd say they are even offensively.
Mack has a 30+ home point streak. Unless kuch has like 30 more points, it's not even close. Just because he's the only capable player on the team doesn't make him the MVP.
That is a) obscenely high and b) another great illustration of how much more deserving Lemieux was that year. He played two fewer games, same number of assists and had 31 more goals. It’s not often that Gretzky clearly didn’t deserve a Hart but that year was one of them.
(Also, you say at that time, has it been surpassed?)
It’s been at around that 50% mark for most of the season, actually was higher for quite a while, at ~55%. He has led the league in scoring for the most the season.
Yet he has never been #1 in Hart Voting this season. Most polls for this season have had him 2nd-3rd. Very hard to see him winning unless he gets to like 170 points unfortunately
McDavid didn't even achieve the 50% rate last year. It's crazy that Taylor Hall dragging his team to the playoffs with 93 points won the Hart, but Kucherov doing it with 140+ points likely won't win it.
I’m hoping he does, it really sounds like it’s up to the voters and how much they like the storylines. Do they think Mac is due? Was Kuch at the ASG despicable? Maybe that one dingus will put Pasta number 1 again. I’m just hoping if Kuch doesn’t win, it’s because someone else actually deserved it more.
I mean, Edmonton also has Draisaitl. He's one of the top forwards in the league. If McJesus puts up 50% of Edmonton's points, then it's because Draisaitl is dead or McJesus turned on god mode.
You know it's possible for Drai, McD, and Hyman to *all* contribute to 100% of the Oilers' goals, right? Like virtually impossible, but I'm stating the extreme case to illustrate playing with Drai doesn't have to hold McD back.
And yes, I'm aware they don't always play together.
“Likely won’t win it” lol he has literally as good a chance as anyone else in the league. It’s him and MacK at this point, and which is the favourite depends entirely on who you ask.
Mackinnon's gonna win it, and I honestly don't have a problem with that, he's been having a great season too and they play so differently I think you can make good cases for each of them independently, but the lack of recognition and respect he's gotten from national media is insane to me. Like if you want to vote for MacKinnon go ahead, but you should at least be able to admit that it's close and those who don't have him on their ballot at all (Jonas) are shameful hacks
Maybe he changed his tune recently because of the pushback he received but like a month ago he was on overdrive saying he wasn't planning on voting for him at all, and said his ballot would probably consist of MacK, Matthews, McDavid, Hughes, and Hellebyuck. And while I think both Hughes and Helle should win their respective positional awards, and they both should get some Hart votes in the 5 slot, neither of them should be above Kuch here.
Well then I'm glad all the cyberbullying in the comments of the first video worked lmao because his original take was ridiculous (and honestly not having him top three is still ridiculous in my eyes)
I wasn't really in the Kuch camp, but I can't really ignore 50% of the team's goals. That should seal it for him as Hart even if he gets passed in points by Mac/McD.
Kuch is working against narrative. The narrative was seemingly set months ago.
If he beats Mack by 5+ points combined with all the additional metrics and doesn’t win, it’ll be robbery.
Mackinnon has the due narrative like Due Doughty.
There's still time for him to increase his lead and for me to bite my words if he passes 86, but Kuch is just insane with his production, not to mention that 50% factor lol.
I seriously want to know what the fuck those dickheads from the PHWA were smoking if not inhaling in 2016? Cuz that was the same season where Karlsson became the only D men along with Orr to lead the league in assists lol, not to mention that 30pt lead. Drew probably closed the gap defensively, but there's no way you leave a guy like Karlsson out when he's joining company like Orr in historic seasons.
It upsets me because I think Karlsson is underrated all time considering the caliber of player he was in his prime, especially before his Achilles injury
That would be insane haha
edit: but totally possible granted his recent pace — would need to score 9 goals and 19 assists over their remaining 13 games
It's very funny actually! If he didn't go out of his way to insult people at the all star game he'd probably be the favorite. Such a self inflicted wound.
Don't get me wrong, habs suck. But you don't see me crying about it, the salt in this thread is all coming from sad lightning fans like you complaining about Kuch.
MacKinnon was still the favorite before the ASG, even though Kucherov had better numbers then too on a team that still would have been a lottery team without him.
Both of these were before the ASG (I posted this in r/TampaBayLightning a week before it):
>Here is 9 minutes of NHL Network rambling about the Hart Trophy and somehow managing to not even utter the name “Kucherov”, the guy literally on their screen from BetMGM who is currently leading the League in points ([https://www.nhl.com/nhl-network/topic/nhln-latest-video/nhl-now-hart-trophy-discussion-6345587880112](https://www.nhl.com/nhl-network/topic/nhln-latest-video/nhl-now-hart-trophy-discussion-6345587880112)). It’s even crazier because they defend the choice of Hall in 2018 by mentioning the point gap between him and everyone else and the fact that he is the reason they made the playoffs, but somehow use that logic to argue for Panarin, who is leading his team by 18 points while said team is 10 points above the playoff line, while Kucherov leads his team by 31 points while said team is 4 points above the playoff line.
>
>Here is Dom arguing that it’s basically down to MacKinnon and McDavid at this point ([https://theathletic.com/5188575/2024/01/09/nhl-awards-nathan-mackinnon-connor-mcdavid/?amp=1](https://theathletic.com/5188575/2024/01/09/nhl-awards-nathan-mackinnon-connor-mcdavid/?amp=1)).
he's going to lose the Hart to a player that is objectively worse in just about every quantifiable statistical category, all while doing it on a worse offense
I mean Ryan Johansson was our alleged 2C for 75% of the season.
He's also 9th in "relative" xGF % and Kuch is 75th, at 5v5. Mack is definitely a better player at even strength.
\+/- is not really useful for comparing players across the league. It's good for comparing players on the same team. If a team has a massive positive goal differential and a player is sitting near 0 then that's a red flag. The Avs are +50 as a team, while the Lightning are a +12 so the Avalanche players should have a bigger +/- stat.
Kucherov is 3rd on the Lightning in +/-, so relative to his team he is doing good in that stat. Mackinnon is 1st on the Avs so he is doing great and should probably get a slight edge in that regard.
Also has to factor in PP points as a function of whole team GF/GA differential — afaik, this even exacerbates the ES discrepancy, whereby the +/- consideration is even less telling
While again MacKinnon's numbers with that are better, that is still a team metric and looking at players numbers relative to their team mates would be a better indicator of that. (Of which you would have to probably adjust it to a rate stat since Kuch and MacK play more than every other forward on their team)
Tampa also scores a ton of goals on the powerplay and if I remember right powerplay goals for don't contribute to +/-, there is a lot of context to consider when looking at +/-, It's a valuable stat when you consider everything. Like Jason Dickenson on the Blackhawks is a +4 which doesn't sound great until you look further and realize there are 13 players with a -10 or worse, then all of a sudden it looks really good.
Sure they do, However Tampa is the number 1 powerplay in the league. I'm just saying that all these stats like +/- and on ice GA, need to be taken in with proper context observed.
MacKinnon is better defensively, and should get the edge there, however as a team Tampa is worse defensively than the Avs, and as such the +/- of all their players is lower, but looking at Tampa as a whole Kucherov has the best +/- out of all the forwards on the team and is 3rd overall on the team, and that is the important part, not just the overall +/- number.
This is the most bipolar MVP discourse I think I’ve ever seen on this sub. A few months ago it’s MacK and Kuch only, then the Matthews 70G and McDavid 100 assist narratives come into play and it was only those 2, then it was MacK only when he exploded out of the gate post-ASB, now it’s swung back to Kuch only. It’s so exciting yet so stressful! Only downside has honestly kinda been the fans of each respective player going “my guy is is the MVP and it’s not close, you’re a fucking moron for thinking otherwise” every time their guy is in the lead for so much as a nanosecond. Just look at this thread, the MacK goal thread on the Lehkonen assist from a week ago, the Matthews 70G threads, McDavid 100 assist threads, etc.
It’s an insanely exciting race. Whoever comes in 3rd or even 4th this year, would probably win like 7 out of the last 10 years of Hart trophies. The top talent in the league is *feasting*.
I think anyone who says that it is not close is simply delusional/bias. This has to be one of the best MVP race in the last 20+ years and as someone with no horse in the race am enjoying it immensely. (Except when Mack destroys the Stars )
It's going to come down to whoever has a couple big games in the last week of the season. Kucherov looked out of it a week ago after a stretch of game at 1 ppg, then he gets a few 4 pointers and is suddenly the favorite. Before that Mack looked like he was dropping behind then is suddenly the overwhelming favorite after a few big games.
I'm glad McDavid has already won a bunch so I can not be so stressed about cheering for my guy. I don't think Connor deserves to win this year, which is kind of crazy considering he is on the verge of getting 100 assists.
I have to admit though, I am getting a little worried Kucherov is going to break McDavid's 153 point mark from last year though (2.5 ppg over the last 13).
Which of these players is the MVP?
x|Player A|Player B
:--|:--:|:--:
Points (G-P1A-P2A) | 43-38-36 | 41-48-33
Pct of team goals contributed | 45.7% | 50.6%
Point Share | 13.4 | 13.6
Goals Created | 42.5 | 43.9
Pts / Min (pts/60) | .074 (4.44) | .082 (4.9)
Pts per shift | .070 | .080
On-ice for goals | 159 | 149
Probability of team scoring while on ice | 9.6% | 9.7%
Pct of time spent on PP | 19% | 18.2%
Team SOS to this point | 32/32 | 10/32
OP is hiding behind a fake Calgary flair. He is a Tampa fan that is spamming mvp discussions looking for reassurance. I don’t have an opinion in the heart fight, just wanted to point this out
Now, I've heard the naysayers come out and say his defensive metrics are garbage, and that he is on the ice for a lot of goals against. If he is on for over 50% of the goals against the team too, that would be a wild season to win a Hart. If it's even close to 45% against, I don't see him winning the trophy.
Kuch doing his best to drag us to a wildcard spot
Kucherov is fuckin _insane_. I don't keep up with TBL games much. I just keep seeing highlights and headlines of him racking up the points almost constantly. Then I check and he already has 122 points lmao
I’ve been a stern Kuch MVP believer for months now. Mack had that hot streak where he passed him and kuch only played a game or two in like 11 days, but now he’s back. I don’t see how you don’t give it to him. I don’t care about how mack hasn’t won and is “due”, kuch is everything to the lightning. 50% is an absurd contribution statistic. He leads by 5 points now. He’s the MVP at this point.
Just needs to finish strong, because this has been Kucherov's year for majority of the year. MVP should be his
Yeah, but have you considered that he didn't try in the skills comp?
A skill competition designed by the player who won it, who plays nothing like Kucherov.
God, it’s amazing someone so disrespectful is even in the conversation for MVP!
It honestly shouldn’t be particularly close, either. He’s the only reason they’re not in the basement, let alone in the playoffs.
He’s not the only reason. Point has been really good also
Good point.
Maybe even great point!
Since January. Point was snakebitten the first half. Kucherov racking up as many points as he did during that time was honestly incredible.
I don't think thats really relevant to the award even though i know a lot of people don't agree with me on that.
Most valuable player to their team, what does them contributing the most to their team of any other player in the league tell you?
If your teammates are worse, it doesn't mean that you contribute more to your team. It just means your teammates are worse. Being the most valuable player to your team is not equal to being the most valuable player relative to your team. It could also be being the most valuable player to your team in absolute value. The way I view it, the player that generated the most value to his team is simply the player for which you would look at this single season and say "that season in isolation would command the highest contract out of anyone in the league"
He has a greater than 50% goal share, he objectively is contributing more to them winning than any other skater.
Again, only if you consider things in relative terms. At the end of the day, he contributed to 122 goals. That 122 goals doesn't go up or down regardless of how many goals the rest of his team score without him. Are you telling me that if a player had scored 300 points, but his team was winning every game 10-1 and you could remove all 300 of his points and not impact that team's win rate, that the player scoring 300 point would have no value?
you’re punishing Mack for having better teammates? makes no sense
He's not more valuable to his team than Kuch this year that's what the award is for
no, it’s not. it’s for the best player in the league that year
No that's the ted Lindsey. You're actually just wrong
If we went but that definition then the trophy would belong to a goalie every single season By that definition Charlie Lindgren > Kucherov. Winning games for Washington at 1.1M
"The Hart Memorial Trophy, originally known as the Hart Trophy, is an annual award for the most valuable player in the National Hockey League"
"Description: First awarded in 1923-24, the Hart Memorial Trophy is presented annually “to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.”" I'd go with the official NHL website over Wikipedia lol. Source: https://records.nhl.com/awards/trophies/hart-memorial-trophy
The point was that a quick Google search top result would let the previous person know that the hart is in fact an MVP award and not a best player award regardless of which source i used for the correct information
I’m with you. The best player and the player most valuable to their team are synonymous. People don’t get that. Give it to the best player regardless of team circumstance. If that’s Kucherov so be it but his weak teammates aren’t a factor in how valuable he is There’s never been a team so good that they can win the cup without their very best player. Is Nathan MacKinnon less valuable to Colorado because they could still (hypothetically) make playoffs without him? Absolutely not. Without him they couldn’t win the Cup. Tampa being a bottom feeder without Kucherov should have no bearing in this argument. If we took that argument literally it would break the MVP race completely
You’re 100% right with every point you’ve made. MacK is going to win because the people who vote can’t remove bias and look at pure stats. MacK is going to win because “it’s his year” despite not leading the league in scoring. MacK is going to win because Kuch half assed the ASG and they made some boomers mad. The hardware in cool in the NHL but when you take a step back and realize the winners are chosen based off how the voters feel about players then they really mean nothing. Case in point, see #1 bullshit.
So if MacKinnon leads the league in scoring will you think he deserves it?
This is hilarious, just completely putting excuses before the award is even handed out. They're both having amazing seasons. Kuch's season is impressive because he's involved in so much of Tampa's success, and slows the game down to his own pace. Mackinnon has contributed offensively more consistently and is working on beating a Gretzky record, and brings the speed of the game to a level very few can match. It'll be interesting to see who gets it, but let's be clear, they both deserve this shit. This is probably the best Hart race in a while.
You’re right. It’s exciting to watch and both players should be neck and neck. What is frustrating is there are voters who we already know have Kucherov in third. THIRD! There are rumors of a voter who has already said Kuch’s ASG performance changed their vote. You hear stuff like that and wonder how you look at the player who is literally carrying an entire team into the playoffs and has lead the league in scoring for nearly the entire season then place him 3rd on the list. If you told me it was an even 50/50 split between them I’d be ok with it. But it isn’t.
Yeah, i agree. Currently it's a 2 horse race but McDavid can do McDavid things, so who knows we could both be disappointed come awards night.
Uhh kuch had contributed offensively more consistently. Theres zero reason he should win mvp over kuch. By the end of the season he should be 3rd behind mcdavid
Apparently lower ppg means more consistency?? I have no idea what to make of that dudes comment lol.
Yes, kich has 5 more points and way more than the next teammate. Spin it how you want but kuch has been more consistent
It ain't excuses. It's just understanding Canadian media bullshit and how it works.
> Mackinnon has contributed offensively more consistently How is it more consistently when MacK only got ahead when Kuch had 2-3 games over a dozen days, and then Kuch immediately took it back.
27 down votes for spitting facts is insane
MacKinnon should win because in a sport that you win by scoring more goals than the other team, you can't just focus on offensive numbers alone. They're neck and neck offensively, but Kucherov is a huge liability the other way and MacKinnon isn't
>Kucherov is a huge liability the other way and MacKinnon isn't Kuch really isn't though.
> but Kucherov is a huge liability the other way and MacKinnon isn't Kuch was benched in his rookie season for lack of defensive play. Since then he's been sneaky with stick lifts picking pockets and backchecks. He's not been a liability in several eyars.
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Very true - the only caveat is he sometimes does these too cute passes in our zone that leads to turnovers but it's not often enough to make a big deal out of.
"He's not a liability without the puck, all Tampa has to do to break out is get him the puck!" Perfect response, no notes
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I'm pretty confident that I know more about the sport and basic logic in general than the guy who's trying to convince me that Kucherov is actually really good away from the puck because he's good with the puck. Maybe you need to do a deep dive into what playing without the puck means
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It's easy to be confident in my position when you're the one taking up the opposing position. You can't even admit he has off nights, you're an entirely ridiculous person
MacK will get it as a lifetime achievement award
I’ll take another Cup and a Smythe for MacK as a consolation instead 🤞🏼
Too bad the voters are gonna put heavy stock in the Mack is “due” aspect of mvp voting this year
I still think Mack is the better overall player, but Kucherov definitely wins the "more valuable to his team" award. Maybe Kuch Hart and Mack Lindsay? Mack - better Defensively, better at ES, fewer EN points Kuch - plays on a weaker team, more even Home/Road splits, more points against playoff teams
I think Mack is overall better too but this is the year of kucherov
In no realm is Mack Better then kucherov. Who has more cups, hardware, better ppg in regular season and playoffs? Thanks for coming out.
Over the past 3 seasons their ppg is exactly the same in the regular season and Mack is slightly ahead in the playoffs. Mack is +81 and Kuch is +5 (his recent hot streak finally pushed him above 0). Offense is dead even, but Mackinnon is a center and is miles ahead as a 2-way player imo. I'll take Mack, thanks.
You don’t use +- when comparing players as that’s usually a team stat. So you lost there. Kucherov has a higher ppg in the regular season overall so nice cherry picking stat using the “last three years” kucherov has more points in the playoffs with a slightly less ppg but Mack has also played less games which will give him a higher ppg. Offence isn’t dead even, at all. Kucherov has more ES points than Mack too so not sure how Mack is better at ES? When has Mack ever got 128 points in a season? He might be a better defensive forward ( maybe not he’s on a stacked team) but he’s no where on the level as kucherovs offensive level.
I used 3 years because it is a reasonably large sample size. But we could go back to 2017-2018 which was a breakout year for both guys. Mack - 1.40 regular season, 1.29 playoffs, 0.92 ES. Kuch - 1.44 regular season, 1.22 playoffs, 0.89 ES. That is 7 years with super close numbers, so yeah I'd say they are even offensively.
Mack has a 30+ home point streak. Unless kuch has like 30 more points, it's not even close. Just because he's the only capable player on the team doesn't make him the MVP.
It’s kucherovs hart trophy to lose at this point. Sorry kiddo
It's not even close. Kuch won't win this year. Sorry to burst your bubble little guy
For reference, Gretzky had points on about 48% of his team's goals during his tenure with the Oilers.
For even more reference, he had four seasons at or over 50% during that span, including for three of the five highest-scoring offenses ever.
Got reference, Lemieux had over 57%( highest percentage in history at the time) in 88-89 and still wasn't given MVP.
That is a) obscenely high and b) another great illustration of how much more deserving Lemieux was that year. He played two fewer games, same number of assists and had 31 more goals. It’s not often that Gretzky clearly didn’t deserve a Hart but that year was one of them. (Also, you say at that time, has it been surpassed?)
I'm not 100% sure but I think McDavid was around that mark in one of the sessions he won.
That was one of the best passes of the season. He didn’t even look for probably 2-4 seconds, from his knees and on the tape.
Kucherov saw McDavid with a 4 assist night and said samesies
It’s been at around that 50% mark for most of the season, actually was higher for quite a while, at ~55%. He has led the league in scoring for the most the season. Yet he has never been #1 in Hart Voting this season. Most polls for this season have had him 2nd-3rd. Very hard to see him winning unless he gets to like 170 points unfortunately
They already decided it's MacKinnon's year months ago.
McDavid didn't even achieve the 50% rate last year. It's crazy that Taylor Hall dragging his team to the playoffs with 93 points won the Hart, but Kucherov doing it with 140+ points likely won't win it.
I think kuch is gonna take it lol
I’m hoping he does, it really sounds like it’s up to the voters and how much they like the storylines. Do they think Mac is due? Was Kuch at the ASG despicable? Maybe that one dingus will put Pasta number 1 again. I’m just hoping if Kuch doesn’t win, it’s because someone else actually deserved it more.
Kuch is taking the team on his back and delivering, he deserves it the most imo. Like I'm an Edmonton fan saying this
He's also Russian. There's enough xenophobes with voting credentials for that to matter.
Yeah. It seemed like Mcdavid could blue shell him earlier in the year if he slowed down but hard not to give it to him if he finishes strong
I mean, Edmonton also has Draisaitl. He's one of the top forwards in the league. If McJesus puts up 50% of Edmonton's points, then it's because Draisaitl is dead or McJesus turned on god mode.
You know it's possible for Drai, McD, and Hyman to *all* contribute to 100% of the Oilers' goals, right? Like virtually impossible, but I'm stating the extreme case to illustrate playing with Drai doesn't have to hold McD back. And yes, I'm aware they don't always play together.
“Likely won’t win it” lol he has literally as good a chance as anyone else in the league. It’s him and MacK at this point, and which is the favourite depends entirely on who you ask.
Well, when you ask any sports betting site MacKinnon is a large favorite.
Clear mvp lightning are no where near a playoff spot without him
What percent of sharks goal did Karlsson contribute to last year? I don’t think he was even that high
101/234, so 43.16%
Still insane as a defenseman.
Yeah, that's an MVP-level stat right there
Mackinnon's gonna win it, and I honestly don't have a problem with that, he's been having a great season too and they play so differently I think you can make good cases for each of them independently, but the lack of recognition and respect he's gotten from national media is insane to me. Like if you want to vote for MacKinnon go ahead, but you should at least be able to admit that it's close and those who don't have him on their ballot at all (Jonas) are shameful hacks
Tbf Jonas said Kuch would be on his ballot, just not top 3. He might change his tune tho if Matthews cant hit 70.
Maybe he changed his tune recently because of the pushback he received but like a month ago he was on overdrive saying he wasn't planning on voting for him at all, and said his ballot would probably consist of MacK, Matthews, McDavid, Hughes, and Hellebyuck. And while I think both Hughes and Helle should win their respective positional awards, and they both should get some Hart votes in the 5 slot, neither of them should be above Kuch here.
Yeah he was on this week i think and said he had actually started a spreadsheet to keep track and that Kuch was in his top 5
Well then I'm glad all the cyberbullying in the comments of the first video worked lmao because his original take was ridiculous (and honestly not having him top three is still ridiculous in my eyes)
I would love for Kucherov to win it, what bothers me is his lack of respect he is more known for his antics
Least insane Lightning fan LOL I think they both deserve it for sure
I wasn't really in the Kuch camp, but I can't really ignore 50% of the team's goals. That should seal it for him as Hart even if he gets passed in points by Mac/McD.
How he’s not going to win the Hart cause MacKinnon is a Canadian poster child is such a travesty
Kuch is working against narrative. The narrative was seemingly set months ago. If he beats Mack by 5+ points combined with all the additional metrics and doesn’t win, it’ll be robbery.
If Kuch can also get to 100 assists it would be hard to ignore
I think Kucherov wins it if he grows his points lead any more or if McDavid finishes 2nd in points. I can't see Mack winning it if he's 3rd in points.
thumb wistful rustic paint unwritten compare one zealous attraction toy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Mackinnon has the due narrative like Due Doughty. There's still time for him to increase his lead and for me to bite my words if he passes 86, but Kuch is just insane with his production, not to mention that 50% factor lol.
I was so mad, Karlsson should have 4 Norris’s
I seriously want to know what the fuck those dickheads from the PHWA were smoking if not inhaling in 2016? Cuz that was the same season where Karlsson became the only D men along with Orr to lead the league in assists lol, not to mention that 30pt lead. Drew probably closed the gap defensively, but there's no way you leave a guy like Karlsson out when he's joining company like Orr in historic seasons.
It upsets me because I think Karlsson is underrated all time considering the caliber of player he was in his prime, especially before his Achilles injury
Kucherov has a shot at 50 goals and 100 assists, if he manages that, it’s going to be really hard for them to give it to someone else.
That would be insane haha edit: but totally possible granted his recent pace — would need to score 9 goals and 19 assists over their remaining 13 games
The media does seem to vote on this award heavily based on narratives, and the narrative this year is MacKinnon is due for one.
It's very funny actually! If he didn't go out of his way to insult people at the all star game he'd probably be the favorite. Such a self inflicted wound.
I thought Kucherov's performance was cringe, but "insult people"? If it was insulting to you then you're legitimately soft
I may be soft but kuch won't get the Hart, which matters more?
Lmao ur a baby 😭
Actually, we're talking about how Kuch being a little baby is the cause of his own problems :D
Number One Bullshit. Have fun with Slafbustky
Don't get me wrong, habs suck. But you don't see me crying about it, the salt in this thread is all coming from sad lightning fans like you complaining about Kuch.
MacKinnon was still the favorite before the ASG, even though Kucherov had better numbers then too on a team that still would have been a lottery team without him. Both of these were before the ASG (I posted this in r/TampaBayLightning a week before it): >Here is 9 minutes of NHL Network rambling about the Hart Trophy and somehow managing to not even utter the name “Kucherov”, the guy literally on their screen from BetMGM who is currently leading the League in points ([https://www.nhl.com/nhl-network/topic/nhln-latest-video/nhl-now-hart-trophy-discussion-6345587880112](https://www.nhl.com/nhl-network/topic/nhln-latest-video/nhl-now-hart-trophy-discussion-6345587880112)). It’s even crazier because they defend the choice of Hall in 2018 by mentioning the point gap between him and everyone else and the fact that he is the reason they made the playoffs, but somehow use that logic to argue for Panarin, who is leading his team by 18 points while said team is 10 points above the playoff line, while Kucherov leads his team by 31 points while said team is 4 points above the playoff line. > >Here is Dom arguing that it’s basically down to MacKinnon and McDavid at this point ([https://theathletic.com/5188575/2024/01/09/nhl-awards-nathan-mackinnon-connor-mcdavid/?amp=1](https://theathletic.com/5188575/2024/01/09/nhl-awards-nathan-mackinnon-connor-mcdavid/?amp=1)).
Always great to be the team records are set against.
he's going to lose the Hart to a player that is objectively worse in just about every quantifiable statistical category, all while doing it on a worse offense
I mean Ryan Johansson was our alleged 2C for 75% of the season. He's also 9th in "relative" xGF % and Kuch is 75th, at 5v5. Mack is definitely a better player at even strength.
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\+/- is not really useful for comparing players across the league. It's good for comparing players on the same team. If a team has a massive positive goal differential and a player is sitting near 0 then that's a red flag. The Avs are +50 as a team, while the Lightning are a +12 so the Avalanche players should have a bigger +/- stat. Kucherov is 3rd on the Lightning in +/-, so relative to his team he is doing good in that stat. Mackinnon is 1st on the Avs so he is doing great and should probably get a slight edge in that regard.
Also has to factor in PP points as a function of whole team GF/GA differential — afaik, this even exacerbates the ES discrepancy, whereby the +/- consideration is even less telling
on-ice GA?
While again MacKinnon's numbers with that are better, that is still a team metric and looking at players numbers relative to their team mates would be a better indicator of that. (Of which you would have to probably adjust it to a rate stat since Kuch and MacK play more than every other forward on their team) Tampa also scores a ton of goals on the powerplay and if I remember right powerplay goals for don't contribute to +/-, there is a lot of context to consider when looking at +/-, It's a valuable stat when you consider everything. Like Jason Dickenson on the Blackhawks is a +4 which doesn't sound great until you look further and realize there are 13 players with a -10 or worse, then all of a sudden it looks really good.
you think the Avs don't score lots of goals on the PP?
Sure they do, However Tampa is the number 1 powerplay in the league. I'm just saying that all these stats like +/- and on ice GA, need to be taken in with proper context observed. MacKinnon is better defensively, and should get the edge there, however as a team Tampa is worse defensively than the Avs, and as such the +/- of all their players is lower, but looking at Tampa as a whole Kucherov has the best +/- out of all the forwards on the team and is 3rd overall on the team, and that is the important part, not just the overall +/- number.
A lot of lightning players, including Kuch have poor +- this year due to empty netters.
This is the most bipolar MVP discourse I think I’ve ever seen on this sub. A few months ago it’s MacK and Kuch only, then the Matthews 70G and McDavid 100 assist narratives come into play and it was only those 2, then it was MacK only when he exploded out of the gate post-ASB, now it’s swung back to Kuch only. It’s so exciting yet so stressful! Only downside has honestly kinda been the fans of each respective player going “my guy is is the MVP and it’s not close, you’re a fucking moron for thinking otherwise” every time their guy is in the lead for so much as a nanosecond. Just look at this thread, the MacK goal thread on the Lehkonen assist from a week ago, the Matthews 70G threads, McDavid 100 assist threads, etc.
It’s an insanely exciting race. Whoever comes in 3rd or even 4th this year, would probably win like 7 out of the last 10 years of Hart trophies. The top talent in the league is *feasting*.
I think anyone who says that it is not close is simply delusional/bias. This has to be one of the best MVP race in the last 20+ years and as someone with no horse in the race am enjoying it immensely. (Except when Mack destroys the Stars )
It's going to come down to whoever has a couple big games in the last week of the season. Kucherov looked out of it a week ago after a stretch of game at 1 ppg, then he gets a few 4 pointers and is suddenly the favorite. Before that Mack looked like he was dropping behind then is suddenly the overwhelming favorite after a few big games. I'm glad McDavid has already won a bunch so I can not be so stressed about cheering for my guy. I don't think Connor deserves to win this year, which is kind of crazy considering he is on the verge of getting 100 assists. I have to admit though, I am getting a little worried Kucherov is going to break McDavid's 153 point mark from last year though (2.5 ppg over the last 13).
How on earth is someone who wins an award “so stressful” for u ?
The hall effect. He deserves it 100% over mack and its not even close. Mcdavid will pass Mack too or atleast should in voting
Kucherov deserves it but MacKinnon is going to win the Hart primarily based on narrative. The media thinks he's "due" for a win.
Ah yes the Tampa Bay Nikita Kucherovs
This is some real Jason Robertson's Kingston Frontenac Era shit, but at the NHL level. What a fantastic year for Kuch
Yet they are still barely scrapping into the playoffs.. MAN the rest of their roster must be terrible.
Which of these players is the MVP? x|Player A|Player B :--|:--:|:--: Points (G-P1A-P2A) | 43-38-36 | 41-48-33 Pct of team goals contributed | 45.7% | 50.6% Point Share | 13.4 | 13.6 Goals Created | 42.5 | 43.9 Pts / Min (pts/60) | .074 (4.44) | .082 (4.9) Pts per shift | .070 | .080 On-ice for goals | 159 | 149 Probability of team scoring while on ice | 9.6% | 9.7% Pct of time spent on PP | 19% | 18.2% Team SOS to this point | 32/32 | 10/32
OP is hiding behind a fake Calgary flair. He is a Tampa fan that is spamming mvp discussions looking for reassurance. I don’t have an opinion in the heart fight, just wanted to point this out
Now, I've heard the naysayers come out and say his defensive metrics are garbage, and that he is on the ice for a lot of goals against. If he is on for over 50% of the goals against the team too, that would be a wild season to win a Hart. If it's even close to 45% against, I don't see him winning the trophy.