[News] Norris Finalists - Doughty, Karlsson and Subban

[googol]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yeah, the days of Pronger, Lidstrom, Niedermayer, Keith and Chara winning it are long dead, now you have to be this wheeling, dealing flashy forward behind the forwards to win it.



Great. So Sweden played 6 games and allowed 9 goals against in the typically high scoring affair that is the Olympics.

It must have been brutal on Karlsson keeping the powerhouses of Latvia, Switzerland and Slovenia off the scoresheet.

And 3 of those goals came against Canada in the final scored by Crosby, Toews and Kunitz, so obviously Karlsson wasnt being matched up against the top lines.

So playing against Canada's bottom 3 lines which contains all-star players and not allowing a goal isn't a worthy achievement?

[codynw]

Originally Posted by googol

So playing against Canada's bottom 3 lines which contains all-star players and not allowing a goal isn't a worthy achievement?

Seriously. Instead of Crosby, was he matched up against the "3rd line" with plugs like Benn/Getzlaf/Perry on it? Or maybe the 4th line of Sharp/Tavares/Nash?

[heep223]

Karlsson's all-around game is underrated. He is very physical and a positionally good defender.

PK Subban's all-around game is vastly overrated. He is very physical but often at the expense of odd man rushes / opportunities against and he is a positionally poor defender.

Don't lump them together because just because they both produce lots of points.

[Street Pharmacist]

Karlsson is amazing. He's definitely not a traditional defenseman, but as a hockey player he's simply one of the best. He jumps up more that any other D does, but the team strategy is designed to have the C come back and cover. There aren't any players of any position that can skate, shoot, hit, stickhandle and play defense like him. The trouble is, it's impossible to play defense and offense at the same time so there will be GA.

Having said that, the guy is flat out jaw dropping at times

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Haplo

Sorry but he is right. You obviously didn't watch any Swedish games except for the final game against Canada, where Sweden btw were missing Backstrom, Zetterberg and Sedin, i.e. didn't have one single elite center so didn't stand a chance against a stacked Canadian team. Saying "Karlsson was taught a lesson" is simply ignorant. I remember Karlsson got a lot of positive words here on CP by those who actually watched the games. He was a beast and by far the best player on the Swedish team.

Btw Ekman-Larsson was a scratch for the Swedish team for most of the tournament because of poor defensive play, so I'm doubting those that think he is a better D-man than Karlsson.

Edit: I would like to add that during the Olympics Nik Hjalmarsson said that Karlsson was probably the best D-man he had ever played with. Strong words for someone playing with Duncan Keith every day.

lol

[Mattman]

Someone mentioned it but I'll reinstate it.

If Deven Dubnyk was able to score a Vezna nomination for 1/2 a year of amazing play in his position, then Mark Giordano should have gotten at least a nomination for being (IMO) the best at his position for 3/4 of the year.


(And Giordano was able to put up better numbers than Doughty)

[IgiTang]

Originally Posted by codynw

Suter? I never heard anyone saying Suter was in the conversation this year. A couple months ago, it looked like Weber, Letang and Giordano were the favourites.

Yup, he sure was. Suter was averaging the most amount of time out of any damn in the league and doing it relatively flawlessly. One could argue that Dubnyk has had such a solid season in part to Suter's play.

Listening to HTM and Boomer before Gio's injury, it was essentially a 2 horse race between Suter and Gio, Karlsson's name was never in the mix. Remember, they were playing like $#!+ 80% of this season... Karlsson was part of that.

But yes, Suter was very much in the mix.

Originally Posted by saillias

His name is always "in the mix" but at the end of the day the voters don't watch enough Wild games to see how dominant he is at his position, and the easy option is to go with the guy who puts up points like a 1st line forward.

Yup, this always came up about how there may not be a better shutdown guy in the league and a guy who drives possession and logs as many minutes at such a high level as Suter... Except Gio who was also putting up points.

[Philly06Cup]

Suter is an interesting name. He logged big tough minutes, while Spurgeon and Dumba got the soft minutes and racked up a tonne of points. Some would say that means he had an off year

[kermitology]

Duha's comments on Gio yesterday were pretty spot on. Most of the journalists who vote will pretty much disqualify a player the moment he's injured. Which is pretty bunk.

Gio played in all situations, still is the inspiration behind this team, and he put up monster points..

Should garner more than a 5th place vote. Duha said he gave him a 3rd place, and confirmed MacKenzie voted for him as #1.

Subban shouldn't be on the list at all, though I can see the argument for Karlsson.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by heep223

Karlsson's all-around game is underrated. He is very physical and a positionally good defender.

PK Subban's all-around game is vastly overrated. He is very physical but often at the expense of odd man rushes / opportunities against and he is a positionally poor defender.

Don't lump them together because just because they both produce lots of points.

hahahahaha! Karlsson was on the bad end of TONS of odd man rushes after doing risky moves in the other end. I you're going to vilify Subban for that, Karlsson gets a big mention as well.

[Bobblehead]

If Gio had missed the first 21 games instead of the last, he would be on this list. It seems to be very much a "what have you done lately" list.

I wonder, if the Flames had collapsed after Gio went down, would Gio have gotten more consideration?

[neo45]

Originally Posted by Philly06Cup

Suter is an interesting name. He logged big tough minutes, while Spurgeon and Dumba got the soft minutes and racked up a tonne of points. Some would say that means he had an off year

Suter had a stretch where he was terrible. He totally had an excuse to be mentally off his game, but for about 20 or so games he was really hurting the Wild