Tim Thomas Forces Us to the Hart of the Matter: Should Goalies Win the MVP?

There’s no debate that Boston Bruins' goaltender Tim Thomas is having a fabulous year.  There’s also no debate that he’s a runaway favorite to win the Vezina Trophy at the end of the year. There is, however, a debate over whether Thomas—or any goaltender, for that matter—should win the league’s MVP award. So, should goalies be eligible for the Hart trophy?

I’ve heard some argue that they should. After all, the precedent has already been set. If Dominik Hasek can win it twice, and they can award it to Jose Theodore (yes, he really did win the Hart Trophy once), why can’t Thomas get it this year? If Chris Pronger won both the Norris and the Hart Trophies in the same year—why can’t a goalie win the Vezina and the Hart?

Along with these pro-goalie arguments, there’s the even more obvious one—Thomas is valuable to his team!  If you go by the very definition of the award, it goes to “player adjudged most valuable to his team”.  If that adjudged player this season happens to be Thomas, then so be it.

I don’t disagree with these arguments, nor do I have a problem with a goalie getting the Hart Trophy. However, I do think that the “adjudged value to his team” has to be higher for goaltenders than it is for forwards or defencemen.  In other words, Thomas shouldn’t just have to beat his competition this year—he should have to blow them away.

The problem, as I see it, is that goaltenders have an unfair advantage when considering an MVP. There are many different ways to build a good hockey team, but there is always one constant: you can’t win without quality goaltending. You could pick a goaltender for the MVP almost every season—Ryan Miller got some pretty serious consideration last year—and you wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

Other sports are not so reliant on one position.  For example, you don’t necessarily need an MVP quarterback to have a quality football team (the Baltimore Ravens proved that).  In basketball, you can make up for a lack of size with speed and shooting. In hockey, there’s no such thing as making up for a lack of goaltending.

Due to the goaltender’s unfair advantage, perhaps one solution is to compare Tim Thomas’ value to the Bruins to the value of other goaltenders to their teams. Is Thomas more valuable to Boston than Pekka Rinne is to the Predators? Is he more valuable to his team than Carey Price to Montreal? I believe Thomas should only be considered for the Hart trophy if the answer to these questions is yes.

Should goalies be considered for the Hart? Sure. If this was a golf tournament, however, I think Tim Thomas would have to give Toews and the Sedins two strokes per side.