Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we're strapping
on our skates and heading right into the heart
of what many consider the most grueling postseason
in all of professional sports. Oh, absolutely.
The NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs. Right. But we
aren't here to talk about the championship teams
today. We are looking specifically at the ultimate
individual prize of that, you know, that two
-month marathon. We're talking about the Conn
Smythe Trophy. The hardest hardware to win in
sports. Yeah, that's the one. Our mission today
is to dissect exactly what it takes to be named
the most valuable player of the NHL postseason.
We're looking at the quirks, the history, and
the evolution of what value actually means on
the ice. And it really has evolved. It has. So
whether you are a diehard hockey fan analyzing
the historical trends or you're just intensely
curious about how sports history is measured
in its most extreme conditions, you are in the
right place. Let's unpack this. Let's do it.
Because we hear the term MVP all the time in
sports, but the consmith is fundamentally different
from how other major sports crown their playoff
heroes. Oh, it's an entirely different beast.
Yeah. I mean, if you look at the other. major
North American sports leagues. Like the NFL?
Yeah, the NFL with the Super Bowl MVP or the
NBA Finals MVP or the World Series MVP. Those
awards are almost entirely microscopic. They
look at a player's performance in a single championship
game or maybe a single short series. Just a snapshot.
Exactly. Okay. But the Conn Smythe Trophy, much
like the Babe Ruth Award in baseball, it demands
a much wider lens. It is awarded to the most
valuable player of his team, during the entire
National Hockey League postseason. The entire
thing? We are talking about a two -month grind,
four rounds, potentially 28 games of high stakes,
physically plenishing hockey. Yeah. You can't
just have one good weekend in June to win this.
You have to be consistently dominant from the
opening puck drop in April all the way to the
final horn. But let me push back on that a little
bit because doesn't that massive two -month scope
make it incredibly difficult to judge objectively?
Oh, without a doubt. Members of the Professional
Hockey Writers Association voting on this, and
they literally finalized their tallies at the
conclusion of the final game of the Stanley Cup
final. It feels like human nature would inherently
favor recency bias there. It's the ultimate trap
for the voters. Right. Like if a player puts
up 20 points in the first two rounds to drag
his team out of the mud, but then goes quiet
in the final while a teammate scores the cup
-clinching goal. How do you weigh that? Yeah.
How do voters accurately weigh those distant
April contributions against a fresh emotional
moment in June? That is the perpetual tension
of the consmith. And it's a debate that plays
out in the press box every single spring. The
voters are tasked with balancing aggregate statistics
against narrative weight. And the NHL actually
leans into that dramatic tension. They really.
The commissioner hands out the trophy right there
on the ice before the Stanley Cup is even presented.
Which is so unique. It is. Unlike the regular
season awards where they announce three finalists
at a summer gala and build up the suspense of
the conspite, only the winner is announced. Boom.
Right there on the ice in front of a screaming
arena. Talk about pressure. And the NHL didn't
even start releasing the actual vote tallies
to the public until 2017. Which finally added
a layer of accountability to how those writers
were weighing the early rounds versus the final.
Exactly. It creates a raw, unfiltered moment
that you just don't really get anywhere else.
And, you know, the physical trophy itself is
just as unique as the voting process. When you
picture a sports trophy, you usually think of
a cup or maybe a bronze statue of a player. Right,
something very classic. But the centerpiece of
the Kahn Smythe is literally a stylized silver
replica of an entire building. It's a model of
Maple Leaf Gardens, backed by a massive, botanically
accurate silver maple leaf. It's a gorgeous piece
of hardware. It was introduced for the 1964 -1965
NHL season by Maple Leaf Gardens. It honors Kahn
Smyth, the former owner, GM and head coach of
the Toronto Maple Leafs. And from a purely logistical
standpoint, it's a living monument that has faced
some fascinating physical challenges, hasn't
it? Oh, definitely. Because trophies run out
of real estate. Right. The Kahn Smyth base slopes
outward with these maple leaf shaped plates bearing
the inscriptions of the winners. Well, they filled
up all 16 nameplates on the original bass tier
after 1980. That just ran out of room. Yeah,
and then they filled the second tier by 2000.
They literally had to engage in a bit of Trophy
Tetris. Trophy Tetris, I love that. They moved
the first nine winner's plates up to the top
foundation tier to keep everything chronological,
and eventually had to expand the bass again in
2010. It's a literal timeline of hockey history
bolted to a wooden base. But what fascinates
me is the irony built into that history. You
just mentioned the trophy was donated by the
parent company of the Toronto Maple Leafs to
honor their legendary builder. Right. Yet in
the entire history of the award, only one player
from the Toronto Maple Leafs has ever won it.
Just one. Dave Keon in 1967. Dave Keon. And how
he won it completely challenges our modern perception
of what an MVP looks like. It really does. Dave
Keon recorded exactly eight points during that
1967 playoff run. Eight points? Eight. To put
that in perspective, that is the fewest points
ever scored by a non -goaltender to win the Kahn
-Smythe trophy. That is wild. Today, we almost
exclusively associate playoff MVP honors with
massive offensive production or... just stellar
goaltending. But the writers in 67 recognized
that Keon's value wasn't in filling the score
sheet. It was in shutting down the opposing team's
best players shift after shift. He was controlling
the neutral zone and dictating the pace of the
game without the puck. It was a pure recognition
of defensive forward play that we rarely see
rewarded at that level anymore. A completely
different era of evaluation. Which is a perfect
segue because just three years later, the definition
of value violently swung in the exact opposite
direction. direction. Oh, the pendulum swung
hard. If Keon won it for quiet defensive mastery
in 67, Bobby Orr won it in 1970 for completely
breaking the geometry of the sport. He shattered
it. Orr won the consmith that year, but he also
won the Hart, the Art Ross. And the Norris. All
in one year. Sweeping the playoff MVP, regular
season MVP, the scoring title, and the best defenseman
award in a single year. That isn't just a great
season. That is a complete monopolization of
the sport. It is arguably the greatest single
season any individual has ever produced in team
sports. Bobby Orr fundamentally altered what
a defenseman was allowed to do on the ice. Before
Orr, defensemen were largely expected to just
protect the blue line and make the first pass.
Exactly. Orr turned the position into an offensive
engine. And he won the consmith again in 1972,
making him the first player and still the only
defenseman to win the award more than once. The
only one. And both times he scored the cup -clenching
goals for the Bruins. Guy Lafleur in 77 and Wayne
Gretzky in 85 managed to replicate the playoff
MVP, regular season MVP. and scoring title sweep.
But Orr doing it for the blue line while also
winning the Norris remains an untouched artifact
of hockey history. It's just staggering. But
even with the offensive dominance of guys like
Orr and Gretzky, who also won it twice with Edmonton
in 85 and 88, there is one position that has
a unique stranglehold on a series. And that brings
us to Patrick Roy. The ultimate game changer.
When you look at the consmith, Roy didn't just
win it, he defined the modern era of it. Patrick
Roy's resume is entirely unmatched. He is the
only player in NHL history to win the Conn Smythe
Trophy three times. Three times. He won his first
in 1986 with Montreal, his second in 1993 with
Montreal, and his third in 2001 with the Colorado
Avalanche. That means he's the only three -time
winner, the only player to win it with two different
franchises, and his wins span across three entirely
different decades. Winning across three different
decades is what really blows my mind. The NHL
in 1986 was a completely different sport than
the NHL in 2001. The 80s were defined by fire
wagon, high -scoring hockey. By 2001, we were
deep into the dead puck era where teams were
trapping and clutching and grabbing. How does
a goaltender maintain MVP -level value across
such extreme stylistic shifts in the league?
It comes down to his perfection of the butterfly
style and just an unparalleled mental resilience.
In 86, he was essentially a rookie riding a wave
of youthful adrenaline. Right. By 93, he was
an established star willing his team through
a record 10 overtime victories. That was pure
psychological warfare. Just breaking the will
of the other team. Exactly. And by 2001, he was
the veteran anchor for a loaded Colorado team.
A goaltender has the ability to dictate the emotional
temperature of a playoff series more than any
skater. If a goalie is locked in, it demoralizes
the opposing bench and gives his own team the
freedom to take offensive risks. Roy understood
that leverage better than anyone. Speaking of
rookies and Montreal goaltenders, we have to
talk about Ken Dryden because his sequence of
awards makes absolutely no logical sense on paper.
It's one of the best anomalies in sports. In
1971, Dryden wins the Conn Smythe as the playoff
MVP. The very next year, in 1972, he wins the
Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year. How exactly
does a player become the most valuable player
in the league's postseason before he is officially
considered a rookie? It's a brilliant quirk of
NHL eligibility rules. The Canadiens called Dryden
up late in the 1970 -1971 season. He only played
six regular season games. Six games? Just six.
That wasn't enough to officially trigger his
rookie status. But Montreal decides to throw
him into the net for the playoffs anyway. Why
not, right? Exactly. And he plays spectacularly.
He eliminates the powerhouse Boston Bruins, leads
Montreal to the Stanley Cup, and wins the consmith.
Because he still hadn't crossed the regular season
game threshold, he entered the 1971 -1972 season
still officially classified as a rookie. He played
a full season and won the Calder. That is insane.
Stepping into the Montreal net with six games
of experience and winning the consmith is a level
of pressure that is hard to comprehend. It's
like being named CEO of the company before you've
even finished filling out your HR paperwork.
Exactly. Now, we've talked a lot about the glory
of winning this trophy alongside the Stanley
Cup, but let's get into the philosophical debate
of the consmith, which is the agonizing reality
of winning the MVP on the losing team. It is
the most bittersweet experience in professional
hockey. The writers have, on exactly six occasions,
decided that But a player on the losing team
was so undeniably brilliant throughout the two
-month run that they deserved the MVP despite
falling short of the cup. And four of those six
times, it was a goaltender. Yeah. You had Roger
Croce in 66, Glenn Hall in 68, Ron Hextall in
87, and Jean -Sebastien Jaguer in 2003. I want
to stop on Jaguar in 2003 because anyone who
watched that series remembers the photograph.
Oh, it's heartbreaking. The NHL commissioner
calls his name and Jaguar has to skate out onto
the ice, completely devastated that Anaheim just
lost game seven. And he has to pose for a photo
with a silver replica of Maple Leaf Gardens while
the New Jersey Devils are celebrating behind
him. You look like a ghost. You really did. But
let me ask you this. Hockey culture is built
entirely on the concept of the crest on the front
of the jersey meaning more than the name on the
back. It is the ultimate team sport. Doesn't
awarding the MVP to a player who ultimately lost
the series betray that culture? How do the voters
justify it? It's a fair critique, and it certainly
creates cognitive dissonance for the player receiving
it. But the voters are tasked with answering
a very specific question. Who was the most valuable
player? Of the entire postseason. The whole thing.
Right. In 2003, Jaguar posted a 1 .62 goals against
average and five shutouts. He swept the defending
champion Red Wings. He swept the Minnesota Wild.
The voters recognized that without Jaguar, the
Mighty Ducks wouldn't have even been in the same
zip code as the Stanley Cup final. True. To ignore
that simply because his team lost Game 7 would
be intellectually dishonest to the purpose of
an individual award. That makes sense for a goaltender
who can single -handedly drag a roster through
the bracket. But what about a skater? A skater
winning it on the losing team has only happened
twice in history, and the first one blows my
mind. Reggie Leach. Reggie Leach, a right winger
for the Philadelphia Flyers. He won it in 1976,
even though his team was swept in the final by
Montreal. They didn't win a single game in the
championship series, yet he gets the MVP. Because
you simply cannot ignore what Leach did statistically.
He set a league record that still stands today
for the most goals in a single playoff year,
scoring 19 goals. 19 goals. That included a five
-goal game in the semifinals and four goals in
the finals itself. Even in a sweep, when a player
is putting the puck in the net at a historically
unprecedented rate, the voters have to acknowledge
that his individual performance transcended the
team's failure. And that exact same logic applied
incredibly recently. In 2024, Connor McDavid
of the Edmonton Oilers won the Conn Smythe. after
the Oilers lost a heart -stopping seven -game
series to the Florida Panthers. And just like
Leach, McDavid's numbers were so cartoonish that
the voters had no choice. Exactly. Even though
Edmonton lost Game 7, McDavid set the all -time
NHL playoff record for assists in a single postseason.
He led the entire playoffs in scoring by a massive
margin of 10 points. 10 points is a huge gap
in the playoffs. Huge. He single -handedly willed
that team back from a three -go series deficit
to force a Game 7. The writers looked at the
body of work over four rounds and concluded that
his contribution was the most valuable of any
player on the ice, regardless of who hoisted
the cup. Though, as a quick update to the timeline,
the Panthers didn't leave empty -handed the following
year. Their center, Sam Bennett, captured the
Conn Smythe when Florida won it all in 2025.
Right, getting their own piece of history. Which
brings up an interesting lens to view this award
through. Positional value. When you look at the
entire list of winners up through 2025, centers
have won the award 21 times. That checks out.
Centers drive the play in all three zones. Exactly.
Goaltenders are second with 17 wins, reflecting
everything we just talked about with Roy and
Jaguar. Defensemen have won it 12 times. But
then you get to the wings. The drop -off is real.
It is. Right -wingers have won it eight times.
But left -wingers, in the entire history of the
Kahn -Smythe Trophy, going back to 1965, only
two left -wingers have ever won the award. Just
two. Bob Ganey for Montreal in 1979 and Alexander
Ovechkin for Washington in 2018. Why is that
position such a black hole for playoff MVPs?
It's a fascinating anomaly. Part of it is systemic.
Historically, offenses run through the center
of the ice. The center distributes the puck and
dictates the transition game. Right wingers are
often the pure goal scorers finishing those plays.
And left wingers. Left wingers traditionally
were often tasked with more grinding board battle
responsibilities. Bob Ganey won it because he
was the ultimate defensive forward, much like
Keon. And Ovechkin won it because he's the greatest
goal scorer of his generation. Right. But generally
speaking, the left wing position doesn't inherently
control the flow of a game the way a center or
a top pairing defenseman does. It's a tough racket
for the left side. But there's another massive
demographic shift in the history of the consmith.
For the first four decades of its existence,
this trophy was exclusively the domain of Canadian
-born players. It was a total monopoly. But as
the NHL expanded its global footprint, the playoff
MVPs followed suit. The dam finally broke in
2002 when Nicholas Lidstrom won it with the Detroit
Red Wings. A huge moment. Monumental. Because
Lidstrom's win shattered a lingering old school
bias in hockey that European players somehow
lack the grit or the leadership required for
the grueling, violent nature of the Stanley Cup
playoffs. Right. That old stereotype. Exactly.
Lidstrom winning the consmith proved that cerebral
flawless positioning was just as valuable as
brute force. And once Lidstrom opened that door,
the international talent poured through. For
example, looking back and ahead, we've seen four
Americans. take it home. You had Brian Leach
in 94. An incredible run. Tim Thomas in 2011,
Jonathan Quick in 2012, and Patrick Kane in 2013.
Then you have the Russian superstars like Evgeny
Malkin in 2009, Ovechkin in 2018, and Andrei
Vasilevsky in 2021. And Lindstrom paved the way
for other Swedes too, like Kendrick Zetterberg
in 2008 and Victor Hedman in 2020. The list of
consmith winners is basically a mirror reflecting
the globalization of the sport's elite talent
pool. It really is. And if we synthesize all
of this, The Kahn -Smythe Trophy stands as a
unique barometer for endurance in professional
sports. It does not reward a flash in the pan.
No, it definitely doesn't. When you look at Sidney
Crosby or Mary Lemieux or Bernie Parent grinding
out back -to -back Kahn -Smythe wins, you realize
the physical and mental toll of playing over
100 NHL games in consecutive years and remaining
the most impactful player on the ice. This trophy
is fundamentally about survival as much as it
is about skill. It is the ultimate. ultimate
prove it award. You can't just be the best player
for a weekend. You have to be the best player
through a brutally intense second season. And
the fact that voters are willing to endure the
awkwardness of giving it to a player on the losing
team shows a real commitment to honoring that
individual two month journey, even when the team
falls short. It forces us to separate the individual
performance from the team result. which is a
very difficult thing to do in hockey. It really
is. So to wrap up our deep dive today, I want
to leave you with a thought for the next time
you are watching a playoff series unfold. We
know the consmith is meant to evaluate the entire
postseason. But if a team sweeps their first
three series because one player goes completely
nuclear and then they win a gritty, low scoring
final where a different player happens to get
the crucial game winning goals, who gets the
hardware? Exactly. Who really provided the most
value? Does the structure of the consmith demand
that a player peaks at the exact right time in
June or is true value defined by surviving those
chaotic, exhausting opening rounds in April and
May? It's a debate that has no right answer.
And it's exactly what makes this trophy so endlessly
fascinating. Thanks for joining us on this deep
dive and we'll see you next time.