Looking at the MVP Candidates

[Advantage 2,891]

As a General Manager, I find that voting for the Most Valuable Player is easily the toughest and most stressful of all the awards to vote for.  In my opinion, it takes the most work and certainly involves more research than other awards.  This year, along with Ryan Power (Devise22), I have taken it upon myself to research the statistics of some of the major candidates to see how they did against other top teams in the league.  This is by no means the actual ballot list, but rather the main candidates as I see them.

 

The first candidate I want to look at seems like the most obvious, and that is Calgary's Michal Wozniak.  The positives are obvious.  He recorded the most goals (72) and points (154) in the league and really had no issues leading either category.  He played on a very good team that ended up the highest scoring in the league.  Some will quickly point to the fact that he scored a third of his points against New York and Riga, but that is to say that he didn't make an incredible impact against other teams.  Not only did he record a point in 62 of the 72 games he played this season, but in the ten games in which he didn't find his way onto the scoreboard, the Wranglers lost half of the games.  Therefore, despite having a lot of offensive talent, Wozniak was an integral part of the highest scoring team in the league.  While it is easy to say he benefited the most from NY and Riga struggling, his consistency and importance to the Wranglers is unquestionable.

 

The second candidate that will be looked at is the top center for the Helsinki Titans, Ethan Osborne.  Despite a rather defensive focus for the Titans throughout much of the year, Osborne recorded 110 points and was seen as the teams most consistent performer.  It was in the big games where Osborne really shined as well, recording 25 points in 16 games against Calgary and Quebec City.  The issue most have with Osborne is that he didn't really stand out statistically and his team was expected to dominate the European Conference anyway.  It can actually be argued that Helsinki did worse than expected and that alone should be a reason to not vote Osborne.    

 

The third candidate that will be examined is the leader of the Cologne Express, Kameron Taylor.  The Canadian born center had a tremendous year for the Express with 57 goals, 55 assists and 112 points, leading Cologne to the playoffs.  Many can point to him as the main reason for the improvement that the Express have made this year as he was consistently their best player throughout the season.  However, those who oppose him for MVP will look at his statistics versus Riga and New York as the reason to not select him.  In 16 games against the two teams, Taylor recorded 42 points.  This means that in the other 56 games of the season, Kameron Taylor only had 70 points.  In addition, over this period the Express were 28-25-3.  Therefore, did Taylor do enough in those 56 games against respectable or better teams to earn the MVP?

 

The fourth candidate is the Continental Cup winning Meute's top scorer, Yuri Grigorenko.  Rather than going with Rift, who struggled in games against top teams, Grigorenko was our personal MVP for Quebec City.  Did he stand out statistically as a whole? Not really.  Even against just Helsinki and Calgary, Grigorenko had 17 points in 16 games.  Is that good? Absolutely.  However, it really isn't THAT impressive.  What is impressive is that in those 16 games, he had 5 game-winning-goals.  Normally, I hate this statistic because a GWG can be scored at any time if your team gets good enough goaltending.  However, three of those 5 GWG were with 5 minutes or less left, or in overtime.  This is a pattern that happened consistently for Grigorenko as he recorded 14 GWG throughout the season.

 

Finally, this MVP candidates list will conclude with the best player on the Toronto Legion and frankly, the biggest reason they are relevant, Remy LeBeau.  On first glance, you wouldn't think of voting for the second or third best goaltender statistically in the league.  However, when one examines the impact LeBeau had against Calgary, Helsinki and Quebec City, you might come out very shocked.  In games against those three teams, LeBeau recorded a 9-13-2 record.  Nothing surprising there given Toronto is a step below these other three teams.  What was surprising was his save percentage which was an outstanding .927!  That save percentage is better than anyone else had throughout the season, and if it wasn't for the end of the year, LeBeau would have one that tops .930 against the elite teams in the league.  It is no secret that he didn't get a lot of help in Toronto, and perhaps he deserves more credit for getting the team into the playoffs and to a very good record.

 

WOZNIAK, Michal (CGY) - 72GP 72G 82A 154P +75 73PIM 187HIT 66.18FO% 13GWG

OSBORNE, Ethan (HSK) - 72GP 36G 74A 110P +56 23PIM 64.72FO% 7GWG

TAYLOR, Kameron (COL) - 72GP 57G 55A 112P +53 98PIM 206HIT 64.05FO% 7GWG
GRIGORENKO, Yuri (QUE) - 72GP 50G 63A 113P +71 35PIM 58SB 14GWG
LEBEAU, Remy (TOR) - 40-19-5 .923SV% 1.98GAA 8SO 1652SA

 

What will happen? Who will be selected? Or there any other arguments that can be made for these or other players?

[Devise 4,475]

I'll add that I was very anti Wozniak before we started doing research just on the surface. As I was aware of his 54 points in the games against New York/Riga. But once I started calculating how consistent Wozniak was throughout the year, specifically only being held without a point on 10 occasions throughout the season it became pretty apparent that regardless of how important a lot of his overall goal totals were, the player himself was getting points on a consistent basis. Sure some of those came in 8-1 wins or 6-2 beatings. But he wasn't stat padding nearly as much as a player like Taylor did, who when Chris was calculating had nearly 27 points in 5 or 6 games alone. Wozniak rarely had more than 3 or 4 points a single game, and his performance was stretched out game after game, with 1-4 point games here and there. With Calgary being as consistent as they were, it became obvious that doing more fact checking had to change my research.

 

As for Tukio, who I was arguing for in a previous thread...my basis completely on goals against. But at the end of the day Tukio's save percentage against the top teams wasn't nearly as impressive as his goals against those teams. While he did get little offensive support against some of the top teams during the season, the wins were often a result of Tukio dealing with very low shot totals. Recalling moments against some of the top teams where Tukio faced 25 and less shots, sometimes even 14. Meanwhile Helsinki would throw 40 on net. Then it became clear that the low goal totals had to do more with Helsinki being a puck possession team for a large part of the season. Even against top teams. So we decided on Osbourne as Helsinki MVP due to the fact that the only real reason he didn't get nearly as much point totals as others is because his stats weren't as padded against weaker teams and his whole team struggled offensively when players like Labatte, Rift, and Remy were playing solid to great against Helsinki. 

 

It is a very interesting debate to be honest. I'll talk about this more when I Pajodcast this week but I often wonder if we should get rid of MVP and Playoff MVP for something that can be a bit more tied to actual understanding/using the stats we have. In the NHL they have the advantage of actually watching the games to go along with stats to determine MVP. Thus MVP isn't always leading goal scorers, or leading point producers. It is much easier to determine the impact a player has on the flow of a game. A goalie could win a game 4-0 in the NHL but if his team gets out shot and out played in the first two periods by a large margin but the game enters tied 0-0 heading into the third most would understand that the goalie is the reason said team is in the game. Even if they pot 4, it isn't as if the goal scoring support negated said goalies performance. That is the type of leverage you are given when you can see and analyze the play of a game. Not so much with the VHL. While we can try to translate what stats mean, the amount of digging it can take and this is a perfect example of it is almost absurd. When we see point totals at the end we automatically assume that they mean something they might not always mean. An example, and not to dig on Kendrick since I think Taylor had a great year, but 8 points in one game easily makes you change your perspective on what 112 points actually means. Because take away that game or make that game less stat padded and your looking at a 100 point season. It isn't just his player either, tons receive that goalies and rebuilding teams struggle. If another player in the league doesn't get that boost they appear to be having a worse season when that isn't always the case.

 

Maybe something like a most consistent award to go with most outstanding, or something along those lines. Something more "defined" and fitting to how we view stats/translate them on the VHL. Anyway, interesting turning of this into an article Chris! 

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Thanks for the support for LeBeau, hope to be a consideration in the end

[Victor 10,940]

You should look at how their teammates did.

[Mike 708]

I think what is important here is just the fact that many people throughout the league have a different opinion on this award this season.  There will be people who don't even make the ballot this season that some in the VHL could make a valid argument for.  We don't usually get this kind of a situation with the MVP.