Hart Trophy

For the first time in a long time, the Hart trophy race is wide open.. I've heard the following names mentioned at least once in the media in the last few days...


Jose Theodore

Patrick Roy

Jarome Iginla

Sean Burke

Brendan Shanahan

Ron Francis


This has been the year of the goalies, and I expect it to show in the hardware this year..

My three finalists are Roy, Theodore, and Iginla with probabilities of 40, 30, 30 respectively...


As long as one of these guys wins it, I'll be happy though...


Any thoughts??

Lots of goalies going to get some votes.. Maybe a split among the voters willing to go for a goalie.


I'd go Iginla, Theodore, Roy, 50, 30, 20.

Ignila better get it or else the trophy is a sham. No one comes close to being irreplaceable to his team. Before the season the Flames looked to me to be one of the worst teams around. They still aren't going to be in the playoffs, but they have been very competitive and its quite clear one player is the reason for it. Patrick's stats are clearly the best of the goalies so its hard to see Theodore passing him even with the obvious team help differential. However Patrick is the defending Cup champion and as such I doubt this season is spectacular enough to get regards as the best player in the league. His numbers are excellent, but he obviously has a lot of defensive help.


Can you imagine what a fool people would have made you for if you said Iginla and Naslund would be the top two scorers and old man Ron Francis in his 20th year would be number 3???

I like Roy's

Perhaps Iginla is the most valuable to his team, but the Hart typically goes to a player on a team that actually does something. That said, Iginla has a good chance of sweeping the Canadian press vote. Theodore doesn't quite have the name recognition, even though he's had a great year. Roy has been very good, but the Avs have been sub-par. He might win almost by default.

Another point to make is something that shouldn't matter, but definitely will.


Roy spurns Team Canada because he was angry not to be immediately named to the team. Iginla plays and plays very well for their first gold medal team in 50 years.


Like I said, it shouldn't be a factor, but it will, especially among Canadian voters.