Follow me on twitter
Yesterday I took a look at the 2008 Hart Trophy voting through the spectrum of adavanced statistics and came to the conclusion that Alex Ovechkin was a worthy winner of the award.
Today I am analyzing the 2009 Hart Trophy voting and wouldn't you know it, that same Alex Ovechkin had himself another fine year. The Penguins Evgeni Malkin finds himself as one of the Hart Trophy finalists for the second consecutive year, and Pavel Datsyuk rounds out the trio of finalists.
Here is how the actual voting went
1. Alex Ovechkin WSH 1264 (115-14-2-2-0)
2. Evgeni Malkin PIT 787 (12-71-27-9-8)
3. Pavel Datsyuk DET 404 (4-14-38-19-19)
Let's take a look at the offensive contributions of each player
Ovechkin had himself another monster offensive year, his 56 goals were a league high and he once again eclipsed the 100 point barrier by putting up 110 points.
Evgeni Malkin took home the Art Ross Trophy with an impressive 113 points but his 35 goal output pales in comparison to Ovechkin's.
Pavel Datsyuk had 32 goals and 97 points which is tremendous, but falls well short of the other two candidates.
How were the player's utilized by their teams?
Just like in 2008 we see that Evgeni Malkin faced the toughtest relative QoC. This time around he also saw the most favorable offensive zone starts. Working against him is the fact his bubble is red. That means when compared to his other teammates he was less than average.
Alex Ovechkin had favorable zone starts and the lowest relative QoC amongst 2009 finalists.
Pavel Datsyuk is playing in a shutdown role when compared to the other two players. His ice time came with the highest amount of difficulty amongst the finalists.
How was their possession?
Once again Alex Ovechkin was outstanding in the possession department hovering around 55%.
Pavel Datsyuk despite playing in the toughest role amongst finalists comes in at an ungodly 60.5%.
Evgeni Malkin for the second year in a row fails to crack the 50% barrier.
Conclusion
This is a lot tougher than last year when Ovechkin was the clear cut winner. For me this is a battle between the reigning MVP and Pavel Datsyuk.
Ovechkin put up way more goals than Datsyuk and also bested him on the points front by 13. He also was excellent on the possession front again.
What makes this difficult is when you try and weigh how much each player's role with their team plays into it. Clearly Datsyuk played the tougher minutes and had the better possession of the two. Does Datsyuk's harder role make up for the 13 points gap between the two players? I think it does. However, at the end of the day I cannot ignore Ovechkin's 56 goals while being a great possession player.
By the slimmest of margins I am awarding Alex Ovechkin his second career Hart Trophy.
Even though he was the Art Ross Trophy winner, Evgeni Malkin finishes third on my ballot.
Tomorrow I'll take a look at the 2010 Hart Trophy.
Take a look at past blogs in this series:
2008 Hart Trophy is
here
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on twitter
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»