According to a recent article on NHL.com, the Hart Trophy race is currently perceived to be between San Jose's Brent Burns, Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby and Edmonton's Connor McDavid. Despite being the only one to have received more than a single vote in the past, Crosby may actually be the one who doesn't belong.
Ruling Crosby out of the Hart Trophy race is an admittedly outrageous claim. He is one goal behind Brad Marchand for the NHL lead with 35 goals, is two points behind the co-leaders in the points race (he sits at 74), and he is captain of the team that is two points behind the Washington Capitals for first overall in the league. It's a strong résumé.
Yes, Crosby may still be the world's best hockey player, but the Hart Trophy is awarded to the most valuable player. He is great, but the Penguins would still be great without him.
Maybe his spot in the Hart Trophy race should go to players whose teams would be completely lost without them, and there is a statistic that can help identify them -- although we will have to blow the dust off of it. Let's look at why Crosby shouldn't be the Hart Trophy winner this season, and which players should be in the discussion instead.
Individual presence
Over 30 years ago, early hockey analytics pioneers Jeff Z. Klein and Karl-Eric Reif released their 1986 "Hockey Compendium," which included the first attempt to measure the importance of individual players to their teams: the "presence" statistic.
The calculation is simple. Goal presence is calculated by dividing the individual player's goals prorated over an entire season by the number of goals scored by his teammates.
A classic example is Pavel Bure, who led the NHL in goals with 58 in 74 games in 1999-00 and then again with 59 in 82 in 2000-01. In those two seasons, his Florida Panthers teammates combined for 327 goals. That works out to a goal presence of 0.377, which essentially sets the bar in the post-expansion era. By comparison, Wayne Gretzky's record-setting 92-goal season in 1981-82 generated a goal presence of only 0.221, and Alex Ovechkin's goal presence was 0.262 last season, when he scored 50.
Expanding the formula to include all of a player's points, the scoring presence bar would be set by Mario Lemieux, who led the NHL with 168 points in 77 games in 1987-88, and then again with 199 points in 76 games in 1988-89. Given that his Pittsburgh teammates scored a combined total of 511 goals without him, that means Lemieux's scoring presence was an amazing 0.752. In comparison, Patrick Kane's scoring presence last season -- when he finished with a league-leading 106 points -- was 0.564.
Needless to say, Lemieux won the Hart Trophy in 1987-88 and was a close runner-up to Gretzky in 1988-89. In 1999-00, Bure lost a close Hart Trophy race to Chris Pronger and Jaromir Jagr, and Kane captured 121 of 150 first-place votes in winning the Hart last season.
Clearly, this metric can provide insight into Hart Trophy voting. What does it reveal for this season?
Three new candidates
Among the alleged three Hart Trophy front-runners, Burns is fourth in scoring presence, McDavid ranks third -- and Crosby missed the cut for the top 10:
Crosby may be in second place in the NHL scoring race with 74 points, but the Penguins also lead the NHL with 236 goals. Comparing that to 186 goals for the Oilers, it appears that McDavid is a big part of a modest offense, and that Crosby is an equally big part of an even greater offense. Clearly, one player is more valuable than the other.
Not only does this statistic cast doubt on Crosby's fitness as a leading Hart Trophy candidate, but it also shines a light on overlooked candidates, like Nikita Kucherov, Brad Marchand, and Jeff Carter. Should one of them be in the discussion?
With captain Steven Stamkos tearing his right knee and goalie Ben Bishop having an off season before his trade to the Los Angeles Kings, there's no question that the fate of the Lightning has fallen on the team's two leading scorers, Kucherov and defenseman Victor Hedman. Both players have responded with career seasons, and Kucherov's 31 goals is tied for eighth in the NHL, and is 12 more than the next highest-scoring teammate, Tyler Johnson.
As for Marchand, at the very minimum he is a strong candidate for the Selke Award as the league's top defensive forward. He plays the left side on a line that is one of the league's best by any metric, is first in the NHL in goals and tied for first in points, and he leads the Bruins' scoring race 76 points to 62 ahead of David Pastrnak, who plays on the right side of his line.
And then there's Carter, who is on the verge of preventing Anze Kopitar from winning the Kings' scoring race for the first time since 2006-07. As it stands, Carter is outscoring Tanner Pearson 60 to 42. Carter's 31 goals is tied for eighth in the NHL, and Pearson is the only other player on the Kings with more than 14.
Clearly, the winner of the Hart Trophy is expected to get his team into the playoffs. Otherwise, there's no question that Jarome Iginla would have won after his truly dominant 2001-02 season, in which he became the first player other than Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux or Jaromir Jagr to win the NHL scoring race in 23 years. With the Flames having finished nowhere near the playoffs, the award almost begrudgingly went to Jose Theodore of the Montreal Canadiens, while two other goalies finished third and fourth in voting.
That means that only whomever of Kucherov, Marchand and Carter helps his team secure a playoff position can possibly take Crosby's place on the list of the top Hart Trophy candidates. Assuming at least one of them does so, there is a newer version of the presence statistic that can help establish which of these three players best belongs in the Hart conversation.
Individual points percentage
"The presence" has gone through some updates over the past 30 years.
In July 2008, I introduced the even-strength points percentage statistic (ESP), which removed special teams play and considered only on-ice scoring. The formula was even-strength points divided by the team's even-strength goals while that individual was on the ice. Eventually this statistic caught the eye of Scott Reynolds in October 2012, who popularized it under its new name, individual points percentage (IPP).
IPP attempts to establish on whom the team relies for its scoring, at least at even strength. From this perspective, Burns leads defensemen with an IPP of 63.8, while McDavid ranks No. 13 among forwards with 82.8, and Crosby ranks No. 36 with 78.8, among those to play at least 500 minutes.
Of the new players on the radar, Kucherov ranks No. 24 at 80.4, Marchand ranks No. 39 with 78.4, and Carter ranks No. 69 with 75.0. Even when the net is widened, that means that only Kucherov belongs in the Hart conversation with Burns and McDavid. Furthermore, the Top 10 leader board isn't particularly helpful in finding any plausible alternatives:
Who should win?
Scoring isn't everything, but it is what members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association have historically relied upon when casting their votes (full disclosure; I am a former member). That's why the presence statistic has been so useful in shining light on which players might gain their favor.
From this perspective, Crosby may still be the best hockey player in the world, but he is not the most valuable to an already incredible team. The Oilers would be nowhere without McDavid, the Sharks would have below-average scoring without Burns, but the Penguins would still be a top Stanley Cup contender without their captain.
If Crosby doesn't belong in the Hart Trophy race, then who does? Kucherov, Marchand and Carter have all been valuable to their respective teams, but only the Bruins are likely to make the playoffs, and Marchand doesn't rate quite as well using more modern metrics like IPP.
Perhaps this season is a two-player race between McDavid and Burns, and their biggest competition will be from a goalie, like Devan Dubnyk of the Minnesota Wild or Sergei Bobrovsky of the Columbus Blue Jackets, both of whom are posting strong numbers backstopping playoff-bound teams.