All-Stars Versus MVGs

Following up on the last post, we want to figure out why Hart Trophy voting results for 1924 to 1930 seem more than a little sketchy (for goaltenders, at least) if they're interpreted as who was seen as the best player at the position each season.

Fortunately, we have many seasons in which we have both Hart Trophy voting and All-Star voting results. This will shed a great deal of light on this. We know the highest-rated Hart goalie for 1934, 1937, 1939, 1940 and every season from 1942 to 1957 and beyond. But for now we'll stop at 1957, giving us 20 seasons to work with.

In these 20 seasons, only six times is the highest-rated Hart goalie the same as the First Team All-Star (Frank Brimsek in 1942, Bill Durnan in 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1949, and Harry Lumley in 1955). It's the Second All-Star goalie six times (Roy Worters in 1934, Earl Robertson in 1939, Brimsek in 1943 and 1948, Chuck Rayner in 1950 and Jim Henry in 1952), and eight times the Hartiest netminder was third in the All-Star voting (Tiny Thompson in 1937, Robertson in 1940, Turk Broda in 1947, Al Rollins in 1951, 1953 and 1954, Gump Worsley in 1956 and Terry Sawchuk in 1957). Clearly, different standards are at play between the voting for the two awards. You might not expect 100% agreement between the two if the standards were the same, but with this degree of difference, where the third-best goaltender was the most likely to be seen as the most valuable, there's clearly something going on. And it we look at the results in detail, it's pretty clear what that difference is.

Season	MVG	W%	ASG	W%
1934	WORTERS, Roy	.472	GARDINER, Charlie	.531
1937	THOMPSON, Tiny	.552	SMITH, Norm	.615
1939	ROBERTSON, Earl	.478	BRIMSEK, Frank	.779
1940	ROBERTSON, Earl	.354	KERR, Dave	.667
1943	BRIMSEK, Frank	.570	MOWERS, Johnny	.610
1947	BRODA, Turk	.600	DURNAN, Bill	.650
1948	BRIMSEK, Frank	.491	BRODA, Turk	.642
1950	RAYNER, Chuck	.486	DURNAN, Bill	.539
1951	ROLLINS, Al	.775	SAWCHUK, Terry	.721
1952	HENRY, Jim	.471	SAWCHUK, Terry	.714
1953	ROLLINS, Al	.493	SAWCHUK, Terry	.635
1954	ROLLINS, Al	.235	LUMLEY, Harry	.558
1956	WORSLEY, Gump	.529	PLANTE, Jacques	.734
1957	SAWCHUK, Terry	.618	HALL, Glenn	.629
	Average	.509	Average	.645

In every season but one, when the All-Star Goaltender (ASG) is a different man than the Most Valuable Goaltender (MVG), the (ASG) was a winning percentage (W%) that is higher than that of the MVG, and sometimes the difference is enormous. The voters of the time clearly had no problem giving Hart Trophy votes to goaltenders on bad teams (see 1940 and 1954 in particular), but not All-Star votes. The only season in which the MVG has a higher W% than the ASG is 1951, when Al Rollins did not play a full season but was still considered MVG. So MVP votes could go to a netminder who did not play a full season, but All-Star votes would not; see also in 1957 (when the difference in W% is the smallest) when Sawchuk played only 34 games. So in every season in which both the MVG and the ASG played a full season, the ASG always had a significantly higher W%; he played on a significantly better team.

It seems absolutely clear to me, then, that the voters were applying the following standards to these votes, in general:

1. The All-Star voting was for the goaltender who was the most proficient at his position.

2. The Hart Trophy voting was for the goaltender who contributed the greatest proportion of his team's success.

So if you have two goaltenders, one worth 10 points on a team that recorded 40 points, and another worth 15 points on a team that recorded 70, the latter would do better in the All-Star voting while the former would do better in the Hart voting. The former was more valuable to him team in the sense that he contributed a greater proportion of his team's success. This is the only way that the voting results for Earl Robertson in 1939 and 1940, Jim Henry in 1952 and especially Al Rollins in 1954 make sense. For purposes of the Hart Trophy, it was often most valuable in the sense of "imagine how bad they would have been without him." This is not the modern attitude, when generally a player cannot be seen as "valuable" unless his team did well, but it clearly a prevalent attitude in the time period we're looking at.

Now, the best Hart goalies in the pre-All-Star seasons were John Roach in 1924 (.435 W%), Clint Benedict in 1925 (.333), Roy Worters in 1926 (.529), 1927 (.375), 1928 (.523) and 1929 (.553), and Charlie Gardiner in 1930 (.534). It's possible that some of these men would have been voted First Team All-Stars if there had been such a thing at the time, but given this analysis, it seems that at least in 1924, 1925 and 1927 these netminders would not have been named the best, rather than most valuable in the sense defined above.

So it seems that Roy Worters should not be considered the best goaltender of the late 1920s based on his Hart voting records. These votes were not intended to say he was the best goaltender, but that he was the best relative to his team. And since his teams were usually not good, that doesn't tell us much about his absolute standing among his brethren netminders.

All-Star Goalkeepers

All-Star Team results from the past provide historians with useful information about how some players were perceived in their own time. Statistical records are of course very informative, but have their limitations. Things like All-Star Team voting records can help shed some light on things that might not be reflected in the stats. They tell us who was seen to be the best at their position at their time, which is particularly useful when it comes to defensive players.

The downside of NHL All-Star Teams is that the league only began these awards in 1931. We know Charlie Gardiner was considered the best netminder in the NHL for the 1930/31 season, but who was seen as the best in 1929/30?

Well, we may not have All-Star voting records from before 1931, but we do at least have the Hart Trophy records, which go back to 1924. (This is all thanks to work done at hfboards.com, see link here.) If we know who the top-rated goaltender in each season from 1924 to 1930 in the Hart voting, maybe we can consider them to be effectively First Team All-Stars. If they had such a vote at the time, we could figure that the goalies seen as the most valuable would also have been seen as the best.

I've certainly seen this sort of argument made, specifically that since Roy Worters received the most Hart Trophy consideration among goaltenders in every season from 1926 to 1929, he should be considered the best goalkeeper of his time. Interpreting this as the equivalent of four consecutive First All-Star Team selections, it's hard to see it otherwise.

As it happens, we do know which goaltender received the most Hart votes each season from 1924 to 1930. In chronological order, they are John Roach, Clint Benedict, Roy Worters, Roy Worters, Roy Worters, Roy Worters and Charlie Gardiner. The fact that Gardiner received the most Hart votes in 1930, and then was the First Team All-Star in 1931, suggests that we may be on to something here.

So maybe Worters was seen as the best goaltender of his time. Considering the competition, his being seen as the best each season is quite something. He was up against a variety of Clint Benedict, Alec Connell, George Hainsworth, Hap Holmes and Hugh Lehman in these seasons, Hall-of-Famers all. Of course, Benedict, Holmes and Lehman were nearing the end of the road at the time, but still, four straight seasons being the best of the best...

But hold on a minute. We also know which goaltenders received the second-most Hart votes in 1924, 1925 and 1926, namely Jake Forbes, Jake Forbes and Doc Stewart. Forbes and Stewart were both good goaltenders, but were not all-time talents by any stretch. And yet, in both 1924 and 1925 Forbes was apparently considered a better netminder than Georges Vezina, and in 1926 Stewart was seen as better tan both Benedict and Connell, if we see Hart votes as the same as All-Star votes. Now, if that is in fact what was going on, we really no longer need to concern ourselves with these voting results, because if that's how the voters saw things, then they shouldn't be taken seriously. Jakes Forbes was not a better goaltender than Georges Vezina.

So there must be something else going on. There is; and next time we'll look at exactly what it is.