Seeing the results from a players poll on what they think about other players and points of contention around the league is fascinating. The NHLPA along with CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada released the results of their annual poll today and if you think fans around the league love Pavel Datsyuk, the players have you beat by a long stretch.
The NHLPA and Hockey Night in Canada polled 250 players and found that Datsyuk was the top answer in six categories. Datsyuk was voted the smartest player, most difficult to play against, the hardest to take the puck away from, the player goalies found most difficult to stop from scoring, the toughest forward to play against, and the cleanest player to play against by the players.
Phew. That’s a lot of superlatives but it would be pretty hard to argue with the players on this one.
The Boston Bruins were well represented in the poll thanks to Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron and Milan Lucic. Chara was obviously voted as having the hardest shot and being the toughest defender in the league. Lucic was voted the toughest player in the league while Bergeron was voted most underrated.
Other curious results:
- Henrik Lundqvist ranking out as the toughest goalie to score against.
- Marian Gaborik rating as both the fastest and best skater in the league.
- Dan Bylsma as the coach most guys would love to play for while John Tortorella is the most demanding.
- The Vancouver Canucks being voted the most overrated team. Hey, who let all the Bruins vote for this?
- St. Louis being named as the most underrated team.
- Paul Devorski was voted as the best referee.
- Best ice? Edmonton. Worst ice? Florida.
As for whether the league should get rid of the instigator penalty, 53-percent of the respondents said they would rather the rule stay how it is. That’s a drop of 13-percent from last year’s poll that saw two-thirds of the players say they wanted it to stick around. That’s a sizable shift of opinion and makes you wonder if the players are of the same mind as Leafs GM Brian Burke and are sick of seeing the “rats” take over the game.