The five players that should be in the NHL MVP discussion at the halfway point

These are strictly my opinions with numbers to support them.

Over the past few years there have been few discussions in sports that make me tap out of them faster than MVP arguments. Not because I do not care about the awards, but mostly because we spend more time arguing about what “value” means more than the players involved in the discussion and who should win it. Your opinion on that discussion better go with the majority or you are going to get ripped to shreds for it. It honestly goes for all awards at this point.

The awards are great and important. Our process behind the discussion just gets maddening.

So, naturally, I am going to write about the NHL MVP race at the halfway point. Because why the hell not?

There are five players that really stand out to me right now. I do not know if they will match up with what the voters will do.

So let’s talk about them.

Macklin Celebrini, San Jose Sharks

There is still some question as to how good the Sharks actually are right now. They are occupying a playoff position in the Western Conference, which is a massive step forward from where they were the past two seasons, but there is not much overly impressive about the way they are doing it.

Entering play on Sunday they had 12 regulation wins in 44 games. That stinks. They have relied heavily on overtime games and overtime wins. Those wins count, but it is not really a sustainable long-term recipe. Their underlying metrics across the board are some of the worst in hockey during 5-on-5 play, while their goaltending has been mostly average. Those are red flags for that sustainability. There is an element of smoke-and-mirrors to this.

Having said that, there were no expectations for this team entering the season other than to simply be a more competitive team than they were the previous two seasons. They are at least accomplishing that. The Western Conference, and the Pacific Division in general, also mostly stink this season after the top three teams. So they are very much going to stay in this race.

The one big thing they do have going for them is the presence of Celebrini, their second-year superstar that is on his way to becoming a franchise player.

Heck, he is already there.

He is already so good that Team Canada actually took a 19-year-old on their Olympic roster because they could not possibly ignore him. Sidney Crosby did not get that. Steven Stamkos did not get that. Canada never takes guys that young no matter what they are doing.

Offensively speaking, he is third in the league in scoring and currently on a 130-point pace over 82 games. Those are video game numbers for any era, and any player, at any age. The fact he is doing it in this era, in his second season in the league, with a sub-par supporting cast, and at the age of 19, is staggering.

What makes it even more staggering is that nobody else on the team has more than 31 points. There is a 39-point gap between him and the next closest Sharks scorer. He has twice as many goals as any other player on the roster. He is also an advanced two-way player for his age and brings a relentless work ethic that makes him a pain in the ass to play against. He does it all. He does it all over the ice and in every possible situation.

When he is on the ice during 5-on-5 play, the Sharks are outscoring teams by a 44-29 margin.

When he is off the ice, they are being outscored by a 41-75 margin.

There is not a single player in the NHL that has a bigger gap in goal differential on the ice vs. off the ice than that.

Whatever criteria you want to use for MVP voting, Celebrini probably checks that box.

You can make an argument he is one of the best players in hockey.

His “value” to the team is nearly unmatched given how bad they perform when he is off the ice.

He is the single biggest reason an otherwise bad team even has a chance to make the playoffs. He is also one of the best players in hockey. Those two things together make a rock-solid MVP argument.

Moritz Seider, Detroit Red Wings

It is REALLY hard for defenseman to win the MVP award. Like …. almost impossible. It has happened just 13 times in the history of the league, and only two times since 1972. Only two different defensemen have won it since 1944. Bobby Orr won it three times with the Boston Bruins (1969-70, 1970-71, 1971-72) and Chris Pronger won it one time in 1999-00 with the St. Louis Blues, narrowly beating out Pittsburgh Penguins forward Jaromir Jagr.

Every other defenseman to win the award came prior to the 1943-44 season.

The odds are not in Seider’s favor. Or any defenseman’s favor, for that matter.

Part of it is because MVP voters get blinded by points, and defensemen usually do not score enough to play their way into that discussion. Defenseman also get stuck with the “well, they have the Norris Trophy” narrative.

Every once in a while goalie performs so well that they can win it just because of how they elevated a team (this should actually happen more often than it does, but that is another discussion for another day).

But defensemen? They just never get the respect here.

This one should.

Let’s talk about it, as well as three other players that should be very much in the discussion.