DARRYL DYCK
Score one for Henrik Sedin. The Canucks centre was named The Sporting News's NHL player-of-the-year on Thursday, beating out Washington's Alexander Ovechkin and Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby.
I'm a little surprised with this. Not with the fact that Sedin won, but with his margin of victory and the vote split. Think it bodes well for Sedin's Hart Trophy chances. To wit...
The Sporting News polled 363 players, coaches and executives. Sedin got 108 first-place votes. Ovechkin culled 86, and Crosby 72.
The results indicate that Sedin's season was viewed as superior to those of the NHL's two biggest superstars. But it also suggests a wide split of first-place votes, because if you count them up, you'll find that 97 went to players not named Sedin, Ovechkin or Crosby.
Since the Hart Trophy finalists were announced last month, there's been much consternation in Vancouver about Sedin's chances.
The Hart is decided by a vote of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. Many of those writers are based in the eastern time zone, and don't always have the stamina for 10 p.m. puck drops. So Sedin gets less exposure than Ovie or Sid.
But if the The Sporting News vote is similar to the PHWA vote, than you can bet that Sabres goalie Ryan Miller and perhaps other off-the-board candidates were atop some ballots. And that should help Sedin because his candidacy -- notwithstanding a high number of assists -- is the most Teflon of the group.
Miller and Phoenix's Ilya Bryzgalov will fight the 'goaltenders have their own award' theory.
Ovechkin missed 10 games, some of them due to suspension.
And while there are no flies on Crosby's candidacy, remember that he needed a five-point game in the season finale to pull within three points of Sedin. Some ballots were likely submitted before Crosby's strong close, when the gap was closer to eight points.
The thinking here is that the other candidates may split enough votes, particularly first-place votes, to let Sedin slide up the middle and take the award based on the fact that he should make it onto most, if not all, ballots.