Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf, and Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux are the three finalists for the Hart Trophy, awarded “to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.”
From NHL.com:
Crosby posted 36 goals as well as a League-leading 68 assists and 104 points to capture his second career Art Ross Trophy and lead the Penguins to their second consecutive division title. He registered points in 60 of the 80 games he played in (75.0%), including 30 multi-point performances, and never went more than two consecutive games without registering a point.
Getzlaf scored a career-high 31 goals and ranked second in the League with 87 points to power the Ducks to the top record in the Western Conference for the first time in franchise history. He posted a 14-game point streak Nov. 15-Dec. 15 (6-11—17), the longest in the NHL since the 2011-12 season.
Giroux matched a career high with 28 goals and finished third in the NHL scoring race with 86 points to help the Flyers bounce back from a 3-9-0 start to the season to qualify for the playoffs for the sixth time in the past seven years. After being held pointless in his first five games and not scoring a goal until his 16th contest, Giroux totaled 28-51—79 in his final 67 outings of the season, an average of 1.18 points per game.
Let’s face it, it would be a shock if Crosby doesn’t win, given he led the league in scoring by a mile, with 17 points more than second-place Getzlaf.
Crosby has only won the Hart once, back in 2007. Alex Ovechkin has won it three times since then, with Henrik Sedin, Corey Perry and Evgeni Malkin nabbing one each.
As for the so-called snubs...
--- Semyon Varlamov. Pretty darn valuable to the Avalanche, who would’ve struggled to make the playoffs without excellent goaltending.
--- The Selke Trophy types: Jonathan Toews, Patrice Bergeron, and Anze Kopitar all had fine seasons for playoff teams.
--- No defensemen made the final three, but we’d be surprised if Duncan Keith didn’t get a few votes from the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. Meanwhile, Ryan Suter played almost 30 minutes a night for Minnesota, more than two minutes higher than any other player in the NHL averaged. Nashville’s Shea Weber -- the leader among d-men in goals, with 23 -- got at least one vote.