Who will win the Hart Trophy?

[griff2311]

Well everybody assumes most valuable player to their team, but couldnt i say most valuable player to the league? or most valuable player to the sport of hockey? I honestly wish they would drop the "MVP" tag and just give the hart to the best player, period. Lets face it malkin or datsyuk could score more points and goals than OV and still not be more valuable to their team. Besides if you start the "take the player off the team" argument, Mason has a carbon copy of the argument made for OV winning the award last year.

[OnePimpTiger]

Well everybody assumes most valuable player to their team, but couldnt i say most valuable player to the league? or most valuable player to the sport of hockey? I honestly wish they would drop the "MVP" tag and just give the hart to the best player, period. Lets face it malkin or datsyuk could score more points and goals than OV and still not be more valuable to their team. Besides if you start the "take the player off the team" argument, Mason has a carbon copy of the argument made for OV winning the award last year.

Well out of the three candidates, Ovie is the most valuable to the NHL and the sport of hockey as well...he's one of the two biggest names in the league right now. You ask the occasional fan that doesn't follow the NHL closely, I'd say they're much more likely to have heard of Ovechkin over Datsyuk and Malkin. Being valuable to the NHL and hockey means drawing attention to the sport and he does that more than anyone other than possibly Crosby...so he wins that too.

[geschrocks33]

Well out of the three candidates, Ovie is the most valuable to the NHL and the sport of hockey as well...he's one of the two biggest names in the league right now. You ask the occasional fan that doesn't follow the NHL closely, I'd say they're much more likely to have heard of Ovechkin over Datsyuk and Malkin. Being valuable to the NHL and hockey means drawing attention to the sport and he does that more than anyone other than possibly Crosby...so he wins that too.

That's a very good point to make, the part about bringing attention to the sport, rather than just performing. Very nice input.

[griff2311]

Well out of the three candidates, Ovie is the most valuable to the NHL and the sport of hockey as well...he's one of the two biggest names in the league right now. You ask the occasional fan that doesn't follow the NHL closely, I'd say they're much more likely to have heard of Ovechkin over Datsyuk and Malkin. Being valuable to the NHL and hockey means drawing attention to the sport and he does that more than anyone other than possibly Crosby...so he wins that too.

Well not to discredit anything you make great points but my statement was not to add more qualifiers for the award but to bring forth more discussion on what the hart should be about.

Let me put forward a hypothetical situation.

Datsyuk 160 pts.
Ovechkin 120 pts.

All things considered AO would still be the most valuable player to the league and the game for you reasons listed above. It would also be safe to say that Ovechkin is more valuable to his team than Datsyuk is to his team. Based the hypothetical stats alone Datsyuk is the best player in the league for that year. Who should win the hart? AO meets all the quilifiers while Datsyuk has the numbers.

My point is the V in MVP has been over analyzed. The hart should go to the best player in any particular year and that the best player and the "most valuable" player are not nessisarily the same player.

I'm in no way trying to descredit AO's bid at the hart. I just want to stimulate some debate and get fans (and anylists need to also) to stop getting stuck on the term "valuable" and begin the hart debated based on who was the best player this year. When i see "the hart goes to the the leagues MVP" what i think it really means is "the hart goes to the leagues best player."

[CSSports]

I went with Ovie - Malkin and Datsyuk are great choices but Ovie is the most Valueable....without him Washington is nothing...without Malkin, you have Crosby....without Datsyuk, well, you have the RedWings...They did it without Yzerman without a beat (after he retired) and they could probably be top 4 without Datsyuk....
I would say Ovie has the upper hand

I would say Ovie is also more Valueable to the league....He is much more entertaining to watch...and if you took an average fan, they would pick Ovie as most entertaining to watch.....on most nights, he has some move or shot that puts him on a highlight reel.....

[geschrocks33]

Yeah Chris I really agree with your entire post, and that's my exact opinion