03-18-2024, 06:22 AM(This post was last modified: 03-18-2024, 06:27 AM by RomanesEuntDomus. Edited 7 times in total.)
Just some thoughts on your Defensemen-discussion:
I've seen the argument that Defensemen are underrepresented because they have fewer Awards a few times, but is that actually the case? Obviously Forwards have been much more likely to win the Mexico and Khan, that much is certainly true, but aside from that Forwards don't really have that many more Awards to win than Defensemen.
There basically are two pure Defensemen Awards in the Stevens and Biscuit and one pure Forward Award that leans toward sthe defensive side in the Dar. There actually is no official voted Award that is for offensive-minded Forwards, only the top-goals and top-assists Awards that I would consider second class compared to the voted Awards. It can seem a bit unfair that Forwards win almost all the MVP-Awards, but it's also the only Award that offense-first Forwards can really go for in the first place whereas as a superstar Defenseman, you can theoretically double-dip and win both the Stevens and the Mexico/Khan (plus the Dar/Biscuit for very well-rounded F/D). While I don't think that this is a concious thought that Awards voters have when coming up with their selections, the MVP-Awards are kinda the only real Award for offense-first Forwards.
This does make me wonder though: Could implementing one or two new Awards give us more well-rounded MVP selections? For example, we could implemented a voted Award that is simply "Best Forward" or "Best Offensive Forward". Would having that make people vote differently and more balanced in MVP-votes in the future, or would they still be Forward-dominated? Additionally, we could also implement a "Most Points for Defensemen" Award so that Defensemen also have one of those pure numbers-based Awards that currently only exist for Forwards, definitely agree with Rich here. Then the Stevens could shift away from its current offensive focus a bit and more towards well-rounded Blueliners.
Lastly, I think the switch to FHM has been a challenge for Defensemen and might have led to them getting less recognition in recent years because the statistical gap between the positions has gotten bigger - we simply are a much more offense-first kind of league than we used to be. For much of the STHS-era, we had the highest Scoring Defensemen in the 40-50 points range and the highest Scoring Forwards around 60 points, so it was reasonably close. In the first years of the FHM-era the gap stayed same-ish, but since the switch to 66 games it has significantly widened and in our most recent seasons we have seen Forwards with 120-130 points while the Top-Defensemen are only in the 70s. You can see it just by clicking through the Players-Tab in the Index for a given year. For the first few seasons, you will stumble upon the first Blueliner on Page 1 or 2, whereas in more recent seasons, you often have to click through to Page 4 or 5 to find the first Defenseman. Forward scoring has exploded over the last two SHL-decades in a way that defensive scoring hasn't.
03-18-2024, 08:06 AM(This post was last modified: 03-18-2024, 08:12 AM by hockeyiscool. Edited 2 times in total.)
03-18-2024, 06:22 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: Just some thoughts on your Defensemen-discussion:
I've seen the argument that Defensemen are underrepresented because they have fewer Awards a few times, but is that actually the case? Obviously Forwards have been much more likely to win the Mexico and Khan, that much is certainly true, but aside from that Forwards don't really have that many more Awards to win than Defensemen.
There basically are two pure Defensemen Awards in the Stevens and Biscuit and one pure Forward Award that leans toward sthe defensive side in the Dar. There actually is no official voted Award that is for offensive-minded Forwards, only the top-goals and top-assists Awards that I would consider second class compared to the voted Awards. It can seem a bit unfair that Forwards win almost all the MVP-Awards, but it's also the only Award that offense-first Forwards can really go for in the first place whereas as a superstar Defenseman, you can theoretically double-dip and win both the Stevens and the Mexico/Khan (plus the Dar/Biscuit for very well-rounded F/D). While I don't think that this is a concious thought that Awards voters have when coming up with their selections, the MVP-Awards are kinda the only real Award for offense-first Forwards.
This does make me wonder though: Could implementing one or two new Awards give us more well-rounded MVP selections? For example, we could implemented a voted Award that is simply "Best Forward" or "Best Offensive Forward". Would having that make people vote differently and more balanced in MVP-votes in the future, or would they still be Forward-dominated? Additionally, we could also implement a "Most Points for Defensemen" Award so that Defensemen also have one of those pure numbers-based Awards that currently only exist for Forwards, definitely agree with Rich here. Then the Stevens could shift away from its current offensive focus a bit and more towards well-rounded Blueliners.
Lastly, I think the switch to FHM has been a challenge for Defensemen and might have led to them getting less recognition in recent years because the statistical gap between the positions has gotten bigger - we simply are a much more offense-first kind of league than we used to be. For much of the STHS-era, we had the highest Scoring Defensemen in the 40-50 points range and the highest Scoring Forwards around 60 points, so it was reasonably close. In the first years of the FHM-era the gap stayed same-ish, but since the switch to 66 games it has significantly widened and in our most recent seasons we have seen Forwards with 120-130 points while the Top-Defensemen are only in the 70s. You can see it just by clicking through the Players-Tab in the Index for a given year. For the first few seasons, you will stumble upon the first Blueliner on Page 1 or 2, whereas in more recent seasons, you often have to click through to Page 4 or 5 to find the first Defenseman. Forward scoring has exploded over the last two SHL-decades in a way that defensive scoring hasn't.
To further expand and agree with your point. Scoring for forwards with the switch to FHM 8 has caused quite the increase in points by ~20% compared to FHM6 with the same number of games.. I'm also convinced that defensive numbers just don't feel like they go brrrr...in FHM8 like they did in FHM6 for a large majority of games making defensemen a far less envied position. Maybe that's because we know significantly less about what an ideal defensemen build is, maybe it's due to certain style of tactics being more popular, maybe it's due to locked attributes?
Rich
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