{"id":61628,"date":"2018-03-28T11:40:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T11:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=61628"},"modified":"2018-03-28T11:40:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T11:40:41","slug":"why-connor-mcdavid-should-not-repeat-as-nhl-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/why-connor-mcdavid-should-not-repeat-as-nhl-mvp.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Connor McDavid should not repeat as NHL MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt;color: #000000\">Why Connor McDavid should not repeat as NHL MVP<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid scored his 40th goal of the season on Tuesday night, the first Oilers player to hit the milestone since Petr Klima in 1990-91.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">He passed the 100-point mark by adding two assists to give him 102 points.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Both are career highs with five games to go.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">He extended his league scoring lead on idle Tampa Bay Lighting forward Nikita Kucherov by six points. He tied Kucherov with a league-leading 30 multi-point games. He has 13 points in his last five games and leads the league in even-strength points.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">He should be congratulated for all of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">But he shouldn&#8217;t win the Hart Trophy as league MVP because the Oilers aren&#8217;t a playoff team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Yes, the Hart Trophy criteria \u2014 the player judged most valuable to this team \u2014 doesn&#8217;t mention the word playoffs, but the Oilers were already out of contention when he passed his milestones. In fact, they were mathematically eliminated a week before Tuesday&#8217;s game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">During my seven years voting for league awards as part of the Professional Hockey Writers Association \u2014 I stopped voting four years ago \u2014 I looked at players&#8217; scoring totals, whether that was done at clutch times, leadership, whether they helped their team exceed expectations, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">But my first criteria for my top votes was being on a playoff team. Maybe I would have given a player with a McDavid-like season a fifth-place vote. Or fourth if he drove his team to within a point or two of the playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Last year, McDavid won MVP with a league-best 100 points as he led the Oilers to second place in the Pacific Division.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">This season, he has been just as amazing and his speed has made him unstoppable at times, but the Oilers have been a major disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Is he to blame for that? Is he to blame for the dropoff in goaltending or the struggles by many defensemen or the long droughts by Milan Lucic or Oscar Klefbom? No.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Should he be commended for being a plus-22 on a team that has a minus-26 goal differential or averaging nearly two points a game in Oilers wins. Yes, but the Oilers aren&#8217;t even a .500 team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Tuesday, McDavid was amazing again, particularly his short-handed goal, not long after he had to deal with the fact that his accidental collision injured a linesman.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">But after leading the Oilers to a 3-0 lead, they lost 7-3 to the Columbus Blue Jackets. His fault? No. But it left the Oilers 17 points out of a playoff spot. That&#8217;s too far back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Besides, there are plenty of other MVP candidates this year. Nathan MacKinnon, if his Colorado Avalanche make the playoffs. Kucherov. Taylor Hall, Evgeni Malkin, Blake Wheeler. Brad Marchand, depending on how you feel about his on-the-edge play. Maybe even goalie Pekka Rinne.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">MacKinnon, again if he made the playoffs, might have received my top vote if I still voted because the Avalanche have exceeded everyone&#8217;s expectations, and he has been unbelievable. If the Avalanche miss the playoffs, Hall or Kucherov would get top consideration. But fans will get an inside look because the PHWA is making its votes public this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">I do believe McDavid will win an award this postseason: the Art Ross Trophy as the league&#8217;s leading scorer. And players could give him the Ted Lindsay Award as most outstanding player.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 8pt;color: #000000\">Source:-https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nhl\/2018\/03\/27\/why-connor-mcdavid-should-not-repeat-nhl-mvp\/464962002\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/why-connor-mcdavid-should-not-repeat-as-nhl-mvp.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Connor McDavid should not repeat as NHL MVP Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid scored his 40th goal of the season on Tuesday night, the first Oilers player to hit the milestone since Petr Klima in 1990-91. He passed the 100-point mark by adding two assists to give him 102 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":61629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9324,110916,1263,126582,127442],"class_list":["post-61628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-latest-sports-news","tag-sports-breaking-news","tag-sports-news","tag-usa-sport-news","tag-why-connor-mcdavid-should-not-repeat-as-nhl-mvp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}