There isn't a lot of merit in the my hockey pools for the Selke Trophy nominations, but I thought I would just throw them on here anyways. The top defensive forwards do a lot of good for a team and I generally find that if you were going into one of those deeper statistical pools, you might want to know who the top plus/minus players are or the ones with the most shorthanded goals, but not for me... it's straight scoring. So, for the purposes of this post, I will just sort them by their pool points and give a prediction of the winner afterwards... how about that? I did post a prediction on Twitter an hour before the noms, I'm curious to see how I did there as well.
It's back-to-back nominations for Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks, falling short of the trophy last year in his first career nomination. He led the three nominated players in points this season, picking up 25 goals and 50 assists in all 82 games for the Canucks in 2010. In the faceo-off circle, he finished 10th in faceoffs taken in the league, winning 55.1% of those draws. Kesler was also a +1 in the season and scored one shorthanded goal as well. His praise comes from the defensive situations he plays in, moreso from his overall numbers this season.
A Selke staple, Pavel Datsyuk is looking for his 3rd-stratight trophy this season, thanks to a more defensive season from the Russian superstar. Datsyuk led the league in takeaways with 132 in 80 games this season, which was far and away the best in the league. Datsyuk finished tied for 21st in plus/minus with a +17 rating, while picking up 27 goals and 43 assists. It was a pretty solid season, but he really did shine as the Red Wings came back from the dregs of the West to finish 5th in the standings and make the post-season yet again.
Quietly, Jordan Staal went about his business playing behind both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin all season... and boy, did he ever shine defensively. Staal finished with a +19 rating, mostly from the 3rd line, took over 1,300 faceoffs (top 30), scored a pair of shorthanded goals and played upwards of 24 minutes some nights. As for scoring, Staal may not have had the flashiest seasons overall, scoring 21 goals and 28 assists in all 82 games, but he does have a lot of value when it comes to a 3rd line centre playing behind some of the more offensive players in the league.Surprisingly, Staal was the only player I had right in my Twitter prediction. I thought Alex Burrows would be the Canucks player that would be representing for the Selke, as he led the league in shorthanded goals and had a decent plus/minus rating, while Jonathan Toews had a much more rounded defensive game, according to the numbers, than Datsyuk. I suppose the writers were playing some favourites, moreso than actually measuring, but what can you do?
If I was to render a guess as to who wins, I think the majority of the vote will end up in Datsyuk's lap again.
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