ESPY’s Troll Toronto Maple Leafs Auston Matthews

Despite gaining the NHL rights this year, ESPN continued to show that they know nothing about hockey by failing to award Toronto Maple Leafs superstar, Auston Matthews the “Best NHL Player ESPY Award” this year.

If for whatever reason the NHL decided to do a fantasy draft and you were the GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs with the first-overall selection, who would you select?

Would you pick Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Igor Shesterkin or would you go off-the-board?

Personally, I think you’d still have to go with McDavid because his speed and skill is just way better than anyone else in the NHL. He’s won the Art Ross Trophy two years in a row and will be the favorite to win it for the next decade.

However, for the 2021-22 season, Matthews was the best player in the NHL and everyone agreed as he was awarded the Hart Trophy. With 60 goals and 106 points, Matthews was a dominant force every night and deserved to win that award, edging out McDavid.

ESPY’s Troll Toronto Maple Leafs Superstar

This isn’t anything new, but once again, ESPN showed that they know nothing about hockey by giving McDavid the 2022 “Best NHL Player ESPY Award.”

Here’s the definition for the award:

"“The Best NHL Player ESPY award is is given to the player deemed to be the best player in the NHL for that season. While the finalists are determined by a panel of sportswriters, broadcasters, sports executives, collective experts and ESPN personalities, the fans vote for the winner from the four finalists.” (via: sportingnews.com)"

This award isn’t to determine who the best player in the NHL is holistically, but instead, it’s to determine the best player that season, which was in fact, Matthews.

But this shouldn’t shock anyone. For the past decade, the ESPY’s have continued to give this award to a player who didn’t win the Hart Trophy that year.

For example:

• 2022:
  • ESPY: Connor McDavid
  • Hart Trophy: Auston Matthews
• 2021:
  • ESPY: Patrick Kane
  • Hart: Connor McDavid
• 2020:
  • ESPY: N/A
    Hart: Leon Draisaitl
• 2019:
  • ESPY: Alex Ovechkin
    Hart: Nikita Kucherov
• 2018:
  • ESPY: Alex Ovechkin
    Hart: Taylor Hall
• 2017:
  • ESPY: Sidney Crosby
    Hart: Connor McDavid
• 2016:
  • ESPY: Sidney Crosby
    Hart: Patrick Kane
• 2015:
  • ESPY: Jonathan Toews
    Hart: Carey Price
• 2014:
  • ESPY: Sidney Crosby
    Hart: Sidney Crosby
• 2013:
  • ESPY: Sidney Crosby
    Hart: Alex Ovechkin
• 2012:
  • ESPY: Jonathan Quick
    Hart: Evgeni Malkin

Since 2012, there’s only been one season where the Hart Trophy winner won the ESPY. 2021 may have been the weirdest choice of any award winner, as Kane had 15 goals and 66 points and won the award, while McDavid had 33 goals and 105 points in in 56 (!) games.

I don’t know how anyone in the world thought Kane was better than McDavid that year, and although McDavid had a great year this year, Matthews was still the better player, as he scored 16 more goals than him in seven less games played.

At the end of the day, this award doesn’t mean anything and winning an ESPY isn’t anything to brag about. But, it does continue to show you that ESPN, as a whole, doesn’t really know what the heck is going on in the NHL on a given year.

I can’t wait for Matthews to score 65 goals and register 120 points next year, but gets beaten out for the ESPY by Johnny Gaudreau who scores 30 goals and has 85 points in Columbus next year.