MVPs Going, Going. . .

First went Sidney Crosby, followed soon after by Vincent Lecavalier.

Then Roberto Luongo waved farewell, with Martin Brodeur going next and, finally, Joe Thornton last night.

With two rounds still remaining in the 2007 Stanley Cup playoffs, it is indeed noteworthy that the three finalists for the Hart Trophy this season - Crosby, Luongo and Brodeur - and the two others believed to have received serious consideration - Lecavalier and Thornton - are all officially now on summer vacation.

Thornton was the last to depart, and in so doing once again cemented his growing reputation (one that has been transferred from Boston to San Jose) as a non-playoff performer. This spring, he scored one goal in 11 playoff games, and went pointless in his last two outings as the Sharks blew a 2-1 series lead to the Red Wings and bowed out in six.

Lecavalier and Luongo, at least, were standouts for Tampa Bay and Vancouver, respectively, as long as those teams were alive. Both players were ridden hard, and by the end may have run out of gas.

Crosby's first exposure to Stanley Cup tournament competition delivered mixed results, but bigger and better things are expected of him and the Penguins in the near future.

The same cannot necessarily be said for the Devils, and Brodeur suffered more criticism of his play in these playoffs that in any spring of recent memory. Forget the fact that he would have had to shut out the Senators most nights for Jersey to have a chance; he's the man in the Meadowlands, and when the Devils go down, it's on his shoulders.

Given that the top five MVP candidates are all gone, it's certainly a lesson of sorts about hockey as a team game. Indeed, the four teams that remain - Buffalo, Ottawa, Anaheim and Detroit - are arguably the four teams that are least reliant on a single player than any other NHL club.

The Red Wings, a remarkable conference finalist in a year that initially shaped up to be a rebuilding campaign after the loss of Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan, proved their team concept last night by finishing off the Sharks without standout defenceman Mathieu Schneider available for action.

The Sabres, Senators, Ducks and Wings are also four teams that didn't go wild and pick up an impact player at the trade deadline, although Anaheim and Detroit certainly tried.

Buffalo added Dainius Zubrus and Detroit added Todd Bertuzzi, but in the schemes of those two teams those two players are support players. Ottawa added only Oleg Saprykin, while the Ducks picked up truculent winger Brad May.

It's a Final Four made up of the four best teams. The MVPs have all gone home.

Comments

[Norm]

We see once again how much the regular season matters in determining the Cup Winner. No team that has finished lower than seventh overall in a full NHL season has ever won the Stanley Cup. (Devils finished ninth when they won the Cup in the half-season of 1995.)

This year the top three teams in points overall -- Buffalo, Detroit and Anaheim are in the Conference finals along with Ottawa which tied for eighth place. During the season, Buffalo and Ottawa were the two teams with the most goals and Detroit had the second least goals against.

Since 1975 (when the league went to 18 teams) there have been 30 Cup winners in full seasons. Thirteen of them finished first overall. Here's the breakdown of winners by regular season finishes: 1st -- 13 Cup winners; 2nd -- 4 ; 3rd -- 3; 4th -- 2; 5th -- 3; 6th -- 3; 7th -- 2. The teams that made the playoffs finishing between 8th and 16th have won no cups.

[e]

Please... Thornton is not a goal scorer. He had about a point per game this playoffs, which is great.

[Robert Buckler]

Don't you think that Toronto is just as unreliant on any one single player? Granted, in this case, the team as a whole wasn't any good...

[Jim Boyd]

What makes this year’s playoffs better than the last few years is that the team that wins it, will be a team that has been climbing the hill for the last 3-4 years and really is ready to win it all.
Tampa and Carolina were flukes in my mind, and will probably never come close again. I think the 4 teams left, even with the cap, will be contenders for the next few years, and are winning because they all have good solid all round teams. No one guy is getting hot and stealing games – i.e. fluke it out – these are good hockey clubs.

I think when the league was smaller the MVP meant more than it does now. Usually if you had the dominant player in the league on your team you did well. Now not so much. Reason being, I don’t think you can distinguish between the top 10 players in the league, so whether one is more valuable than the other is a moot point.

[Abdul]

Theres a spin on your last article (JFJ extension) alright.

"One year they set a team record for points with 103"

Of course they set a team record for points, because point totals have been inflated.

They used to award 2460 points in a season (41 home games per team * 2 points per game * 30 teams = 2460 points). This would work out to an average of 82 points per team (in other words the .500 mark was 82 points).

This year, 2741 points were awarded. An average of 91.37 points per team (which made 92 points the .500 mark).

The Leafs only hit 91 points this year, so they didn't even hit .500. Thats more like getting 81 points in the old system.

A 103 point season now would be more like a 92 point season pre-OTL.