Sedin, Hart but no Lindsay


Alex Ovechkin wins the Ted Lindsay (Pearson) Award as the MVP voted by the players and Henrik Sedin wins the Hart Trophy as the offical MVP voted by the writers. Somewhat surprisingly, this differing opinion on the MVP's of a season is not as uncommon as you'd think. Of the 39 Pearson/Lindsay winners, 14 of them failed to also win the Hart Trophy.
Four of the first six Pearson winners failed to win the Hart. In 1971 and 1972, Phil Esposito and Jean Ratelle were denied the Hart by one Bobby Orr and in 1975 and 1976 Orr himself and Guy Lafleur lost the Hart to Bobby Clarke both years.
For three straight seasons, 1979 thru '81 the Pearson and Hart had differing outcomes. Marcel Dionne twice and Mike Liut were beaten for the Hart by Bryan Trottier in 1979 then Wayne Gretzky back to back. Gretzky formed a consesus for four consecutive seasons then lost the Pearson to Mario Lemieux in 1986. Gretz also had a Hart with no Pearson in '89 when Steve Yzerman was the players pick.
For ten straight years through 1999 the two awards had the same winners until Jagr took the Pearson over Chris Pronger in 2000, Iginla won over Jose Theodore in '02 and Markus Naslund bested Peter Forsberg in '03. Jagr once again took the Pearson in '06 over Joe Thornton's Hart.
Overall Wayne Gretzky took nine Harts and only five Pearson Trophies.

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