STRAIGHT SHOOTERS
Another award this year that will be a very tough, close call much like the Norris Trophy. In the preseason, we went with Mario Lemieux as our favorite coming off his Hart Trophy of 1994, along with Wayne Gretzky, Dale Hawerchuk and Laurie Boschman closely following. A pair of these guys got moved around the deadline (Gretzky and Hawerchuk) and had decent seasons, but not Hart like, while the other two are in the race.
Brett Hull was not only not in the top 10 in the preseason, and we also had two Rockies ahead of him. Well, he jumped out to a tremendous start, and nobody was able to ever chase him down for the Art Ross Trophy. His 51 goals lead the league as he took home the Rocket Richard Trophy as well, beating his career high of 40 goals. His 117 points also was tops by 6 points over Boschman, and his new career high by 21 points. He did that while scoring 13 times on the PP, 3 times shorthanded. He ended with a 22.77% in shooting and had 201 hits, his first time over 200 in a season. His 117 points put him in 3rd place for best seasons by a RW.
Laurie Boschman made the New Jersey Devils go. He put up 44 goals, 67 assists and 111 points for second in the league. His +51 was tops in the league as well, 4 higher than anyone else. Possibly more impressive was the fact he had 29 more points then his nearest teammate, while Brett Hull had 15 over his nearest. He has definitely liked his time in New Jersey, as the 111 points set a new career high for him, even though he has passed the 100-point mark 5 times now. He was also close to 200 hits, just coming up short with 198. His shooting % was a very solid 18.57, his best in his career. He also led the league in star points with 102, 39 more than Hull.
Mario Lemieux will always be in the discussions, but a regression in points from his previous season will make it tough. He did finish with 35 goals and 71 assists, which was 3rd in the league. His point total of 106 was also 3rd, although it was 5 behind Boschman, and 11 behind Hull. He did finish with the most shots in the league at 255. However, he had one of his lowest shooting % of his career at 13.73%
We wanted to throw in a long shot here, to see how much GM’s actually pay attention throughout the season. Mark Messier had a season for the ages. Not even near the radar, and in trouble of the underperforming superstar moniker at the quarter point of the season, Messier went on a run like no other. He won the last 2 Player of the Month awards in the season, out of only 4 handed out all season. While his numbers are not very massive when looked at the whole season, he finished with 35 goals, 57 assists and 92 points. His shooting % ended at 15.15%. At the quarter mark, he was under 8%. In the last two month though, in 38 games, he scored 23 goals and 40 assists for 63 points. He was a +21 with 99 hits and 124 shots for an 18.55 shooting %. To put that into context, in the first 41 games, he had 12 goals and 17 assists for 29 points. He was -1 with 115 hits and 107 shots and a 11.21 shooting percentage. Is this enough to win the Hart? Highly unlikely but he will take some votes and affect the winner in the end we believe as he had a second half that was tremendous.
This will be a very tight race for the Hart in 1995, but we are going to go with Laurie Boschman as the winner. Although we think Brett Hull will have more 1st place votes, we think the difference in points compared to his teammates will make the difference. Both had great years though. Mario, Roy, Messier will pick off some votes as well, so it will be interesting.
Brett Hull – 8 1st place votes
Laurie Boschman – 7 1st place votes
Mario Lemiuex – 3 1st place votes
Patrick Roy – 3 1st place votes
Kirk Muller – 3 1st place votes
Dmitri Khristich – 2 1st place votes
STRAIGHT SHOOTERS