After watching Malkin & Crosby miss getting an empty net goal on probably about 5 attempts the other night at the Calgary game, I started to wonder how many empty net points the players in the race for the Art Ross scoring leader trophy had amassed this season. Apparently the NHL doesn’t keep that statistic among the thousands of oddball statistics they keep.
2010 results: Empty Net Goals: Ovechkin, Stamkos, Crosby & Sedin – 2010
So I pulled out the calculator and here’s what I came up with:
- Evgeni Malkin: 3 goals and 2 assists on empty net goals.
- Alexander Ovechkin: 5 goals and 2 assists on empty net goals.
- Sidney Crosby: 2 goals and 2 assists on empty net goals.
While the Art Ross Trophy race is not affected by empty net goals, the MVP vote should be looking at how many of the players points were derived from emptynetters. If you take the players total points that they have now and subtract the freebie empty net points, then the race looks like this:
- Evgeni Malkin: 107 pts – 5 empty net pts. = 102 pts
- Alexander Ovechkin: 100 pts – 7 empty net pts. = 93 pts
- Sidney Crosby: 97 pts – 4 empty net pts. = 93 pts
Just another reason Evgeni Malkin deserves the MVP award.
Yes, AOL exists, and except for changing the boards, are better than ever because they are now free with high speed access… 🙂
The letsgocapitals site is not mine, and yes, I am a CAPS fan, and I was invited to this site by a Pens fan… It’s a nice site, even though I don’t except all the views by the bloggers; or any of their views!! LOL!!
Stealth??? Aol still exists?? is it still dial up? I used to have that back in the 90’s. +I’m guessing your a caps fan & I’m guessing they’ll let anyone on this thing. 🙂 Is the caps blog yours? I’ll definitely check it out if we match up with you guys in the playoffs.
@ Foreczech
EN goals, off the defensman’s skate, pushed in by the goalie, deflected by accident, I never touched it, etc. — let’s face it if we eliminated everything but clean goals there really wouldn’t be as many. IMHO I think they should allow kicked in goals.
With the AOL boards going into a different format, I was invited to this board – By someone very close to your heart, MS FORECZECH… 😉 I will still post on the AOL boards, as I hope everyone else continues to do as well, but this looks like a good site to post as well…
I would encourage yinzers to post at http://www.letsgocapitals.com as well… It’s not as slick as this site, but it works… We need diverse opinions… 🙂
(look who’s here) I agree with you Stealth . . . EN goals aren’t any different that goals that go in off of a defensemen’s skates. If you discounted all those goals who knows who would be leading the league.
As to who is better between those three players it’s a tough call. On any given night in could be someone else. Look a Datsyuk creeping in to the scoring. Don Cherry is a lot like Mark Madden who both belong on the WWF rather than hockey.
PS. If anyone thinks EN goals are automatic the should see Crosby and Malkin in their last two tries plus Cooke’s which were really off center.
I don’t think empty net points deserve any consideration at all in regards to who gets the MVP… It’s a credit to the team and whoever is on the ice that beats the usual manpower disadvantage and gets the goal… That’s a job well done in my book, and shouldn’t be looked down upon at all… That said, the MVP is about who is most important to their particular team… The argument can be made for both Malkin and Ovechkin, and I wouldn’t feel that A.O. got ripped if Malkin wins it… He’s had a Helluva season, no doubt about it… And I would hope Pens fans feel the same way about A.O. if he should win it… I mean, where would the CAPS be without A.O… Two great Russian players… Don Cherry, eat your heart out…
😉