It's getting to that point in the season when awards are being discussed more and more heavily. With fewer than 30 games left on the schedule for most teams, now seems as good a time as any.

Most people have pretty much already decided on who's going to get what awards in their minds. Giordano for Norris, Rinne for Vezina, etc. A few are still up in the air though, including the most important — or rather “Most Valuable” — one: The Hart.

The concept of who deserves to win the Hart Trophy has always been a weird one. It is, generally, treated in the way that the Norris or Vezina is: An award granted to the best forward in the league. And typically, “best” means “highest-scoring.” Which is fine. Scoring the most points is generally the best way to provide the most value to your team. Not always, but usually.

The last time a non-forward won it was 2002, when Jose Theodore took home both this award and the Vezina as the best goaltender in the league, whose .931 save percentage basically dragged a mediocre Habs team screaming into the playoffs.

Chris Pronger won it three years earlier, and Dominik Hasek took it home twice in 1997 and '98. Before that, you have to go all the way back to Bobby Orr to find a non-forward who wins this award. Orr won it three times running, the last of which came in 1972.

So yeah, seven Harts out of 44 since 1970 have gone to non-forwards, and it was only an even remotely frequent event prior to the conclusion of World War II (defensemen and goaltenders won 10 of the first 21 Harts awarded). This is rather safely a forwards' award.

Now the question of whether that's right or fair is a different matter entirely, and one that's once again rearing its head because, as with Theodore 13 years ago, it's looking like a Montreal netminder is probably going to win this award.

And it's hard to argue that Carey Price hasn't been the guy most valuable to his team this season. The Habs are a mess. Like most teams coached by Michel Therrien, they have the puck less often than their opponents (48.6 percent in score-adjusted corsi, 22nd in the league entering last night's games), and they allow the sixth-most shot attempts per 60 minutes at even strength in the league.

Their offense is solidly middle of the pack in terms of goalscoring at evens, and worse than that on the power play. They don't have much in the way of depth up front, and they're using Sergei Gonchar's ghost as a top-four defenseman.

This is a team with a lot of problems, and all of them are solved by Price.

His save percentage is second in the league at 5-on-5, checking in at a ludicrously high .941 (Rinne's .944 is better but he's played fewer games). When Montreal is killing a penalty, Price has been there too, with a fifth-among-starters .887. And given how bad the rest of the Habs generally are, his work is unassailably spectacular in all the ways you'd expect it to be from a franchise netminder. Only eight goaltenders have appeared in more games, and only seven have played more minutes.

The Habs lean on him heavily, and to great effect. As of this writing, the Canadiens are second in their conference, just two points back of that exceptional Tampa team, and with two games in hand. Their 32 wins is tied for second in the league, as well.

Let's put it another way: Given how much rubber Price is seeing — fifth in shots faced at 1,198 prior to last night's games— and the fact that only one other player in the league is north of .930, we can safely assume that just about any other goalie on the planet would look so much worse behind this exact same team.

For instance, the league-average save percentage this year is .913, down a single thousandth of a point. If Carey Price were merely league-average, he would have allowed an additional 22 goals this season. Given that we also know that roughly even three goals or so of differential equals one point in the standings, we can safely say Price has saved his team roughly seven points above an average netminder playing the same minutes. Losing seven points would have them out of the playoffs in the East right now, rather than the two-seed.

And so people are understandably banging the drum for Price to win the Hart. Again, it makes total sense. No single outfield player is going to have that kind of impact for their club; they don't play enough minutes and they neither save nor score enough goals to make up seven points in the standings.

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