The Just Missed All-Stars

I recently came across the official, end of season All-Star voting results from the late 1970's onward. It's interesting to look at the numbers to see where players were ranked and how the All-Star votes compared to individual Trophy voting.

Back in 1988 there was some strange voting for the Goaltender All-Stars and the Vezina voting.
Grant Fuhr won the Vezina and was named First Team All-Star by collecting 297 voting points, Patrick Roy was voted to the Second Team with a distant 64 points. In the Vezina voting, for some reason, Roy didn't fare as well. Fuhr won again going away with 78 points over second place Tom Barrasso (22 points) and third place Kelly Hrudey (17 points). Roy somehow only garnered 2 second place and 2 third place votes for 8 points total to finish EIGHTH overall in Vezina voting. Also finishing ahead of him was Mike Vernon, John Vanbiesbrouck, Rejean Lemelin and Roy's teammate Brian Hayward. Puzzling.

The 1983/84 season proved to be one of the more difficult ever to choose the best goaltender.
Sure, Tom Barrasso was both the Vezina winner and First Team All-Star but what a tight vote it was. In a four man race, try choosing the best netminder out of these numbers;

Tom Barrasso 26-12-3, 2.84
Rejean Lemelin 21-12-9, 3.50
Pat Riggin, 21-14-2, 2.66
Al Jensen, 25-13-3, 2.91

This was the same order of Vezina Trophy voting, their vote totals were 42, 39, 37 and 37.
The All-Star voting had Riggin and Lemelin reversed and the four vote totals were 141, 131, 104 and 100.

Another incident of strange voting was for Norris Trophy in 1982/83 when Rod Langway won the first of his back-to-back. Although Langway won the Norris 180 votes to 155 over Mark Howe, he was well behind in the All-Star voting. Howe collected 262 All-Star points to Langway's 228.

Another neat thing to look at is players who almost were voted First or Second All-Stars, but never actually made it.

In 1980/81 Mike Bossy ran away with the Right Wing voting getting 299 points. Dave Taylor gained 85 points for Second Team just ahead of Wayne Babych's 71. This would be as close as Babych would ever get to being an All-Star.

Newly elected Hall-of-Famer Dino Ciccarelli came close twice to being a Second All-Star. In 1981/82 he was third in voting behind Mike Bossy and Rick Middleton. Even though Dino had 55 goals and 106 points to Middleton's 51 goals, 94 points it was Middleton who got two first place votes. Overall he had 102 voting points to Dino's 64.

Ciccarelli was slightly closer in 1986/87 when he finished third by 25 points, this time to Jari Kurri and Tim Kerr. That year, he finished sixth in the league in points with 103 but his 52 goals was 6 behind Kerr.
Craig Hartsburg came extremely close to being an All-Star in 81/82 when he finished fifth in voting just behind Brian Engblom (108 points to 112). Hartsburg actually received 14 first place votes, more than both Second Teamers, Paul Coffey and Engblom. In the past I discussed the selection of Engblom as an All-Star. http://nitzyshockeyden.blogspot.com/2008/09/worst-all-star-ever.html



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Hextall and the stolen Conn Smythe Trophy

Image
Ron Hextall did not deserve the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1987....there, I said it. I recently caught game seven of the '87 finals on ESPN Classic, where the Oilers beat the Flyers 3-1. Hextall was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy to the disdain and boos of the Northlands Coliseum. Hextall was (and remains) the fourth player to win the trophy in a losing cause. Even as a teenager following these playoffs as they happened, I thought this was an injustice. Upon further inspection, I believe he only won because he was a rookie, and was the "sexy" pick as opposed to the proper pick. When looking at his numbers, it's hard to figure why he won. Hextall finished with 15 wins, 11 losses and a GAA of 2.77. Oilers, Grant Fuhr went 14 and 5 with an average of 2.46. I realize that stats cannot tell the whole story, but even if we dig further the award doesn't seem justified. His .908 Save Pct was the same as Fuhr's and tied for third behind Ken Wregget and Kelly Hrudey. Also,...
Read more

WHA Ottawa Civics, The Two Week Franchise

Image
Tom Earl, Daryl Maggs, Mark Lomenda, Gary MacGregor, Garry Swain "Please let the fans make up their own minds," Henry Feller told a press gathering. "Let them decide if they want pro hockey here. We have to average 7,000 or 8,000 in the remaining 19 home games for a break-even point." Feller was a director of the Founders Club who had interest in buying the WHA's Denver Spurs club. Ivan Mullinex, owner of the Spurs had brought his team to Ottawa in an attempt to drum up interest and save his investment. The date was January 2, 1976 and Mullinex was in debt to a Denver bank to the tune of $1 million dollars. This same day, the newly christened Civics lost their first game under the new moniker by a score of 2-1 at Cincinnati. Star of the team, Ralph Backstrom said after the game, "Our first official notice of the move hit us when we entered the Cincinnati rink and the names on the big scoreboard read: Stingers and Civics. Until that moment we were un...
Read more

Team Canada 1972, What Might have Been

Image
Guy Lafleur, if he had played in the 72 Summit Series "No way. Can you imagine what our fans would say if we allowed Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito to play for Canada in that series and either...suffered an injury that might prevent them from playing with us for a year or more?" This was the concern of Weston Adams Jr, president of the Boston Bruins as quoted on April 20, 1972. After being speculated and discussed since February 1972 at the Olympics in Sapporo Japan, the series was set to go. Early on however, controversy stirred as to who exactly would be representing Canada. Bruins GM, Milt Schmidt agreed with his boss saying, "My only interest would be to see the Russians play the Bruins for the world championship...or whatever team wins the Stanley Cup." In the Vancouver Sun a few days later, the legendary Jim Coleman responds to the American naysayers suggesting that Team Canada should be made up strictly of players from Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal ...
Read more