Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins won the 2014 Hart Trophy, awarded "to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team" as selected by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.*
And it wasn’t even close.
Crosby got 128 first-place votes from the 137 ballots cast. This is his second Hart Trophy, having previously won in 2007. Ovechkin has three, so he’s got’em there, which is something, we guess.
Earlier in the NHL Awards, Crosby won the Ted Lindsay Award, a.k.a. the player of the year award given out by the NHLPA. He topped his Hart finalists, Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks and Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers, for that award as well.
From the NHL:
Crosby posted 36 goals as well as a League-leading 68 assists and 104 points to lead the Penguins to their second consecutive division title. He registered points in 60 of the 80 games he played in (75.0%), including 30 multi-point performances, and never went more than two consecutive games without registering a point. Crosby also reached the 100-point milestone for the fifth time in his career and on Nov. 29 hit 700 career points, doing so in his 497th game, the fastest among active players and sixth-fastest in NHL history.
Here’s the voting:
Pts. (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th)
1. Sidney Crosby, PIT 1341 (128-8-1-0-0)
2. Ryan Getzlaf, ANA 877 (5-96-28-5-0)
3. Claude Giroux, PHI 435 (2-15-42-27-19)
4. Semyon Varlamov, COL 256 (1-8-23-22-9)
5. Patrice Bergeron, BOS 137 (0-4-9-17-13)
6. Tyler Seguin, DAL 84 (0-1-6-12-11)
7. Joe Pavelski, SJ 71 (0-0-3-11-23)
8. Anze Kopitar, LA 58 (0-0-4-9-11)
9. Jonathan Toews, CHI 53 (0-2-4-4-7)
10. Ben Bishop, TB 52 (0-0-5-6-9)
11. Tuukka Rask, BOS 35 (0-1-2-5-3)
12. Jamie Benn, DAL 35 (0-1-2-4-6)
13. Corey Perry, ANA 29 (0-0-3-4-2)
14. Carey Price, MTL 20 (1-0-1-0-5)
15. Duncan Keith, CHI 19 (0-0-1-3-5)
16. Gustav Nyquist, DET 13 (0-1-0-2-0)
17. Matt Duchene, COL 11 (0-0-1-1-3)
18. Alex Steen, STL 9 (0-0-1-1-1)
John Tavares, NYI 9 (0-0-1-1-1)
20. Patrick Sharp, CHI 7 (0-0-0-2-1)

21. Shea Weber, NSH 4 (0-0-0-1-1)
22. Joe Thornton, SJ 3 (0-0-0-0-3)
23. Jaromir Jagr, NJ 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
Patrick Marleau, SJ 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
Alex Ovechkin, WSH 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
Ryan Suter, MIN 1 (0-0-0-0-1)*
Our ballot is here.*
The top three was fairly concrete, although it's interesting to see Varlamov and Bergeron finiish ahead of Seguin, who must have had Benn eating some of his votes.*
Nyquist? A second place vote? Seriously? For 57 games?
Guess being minus-a billion on a non-playoff team doesn't get Alex Ovechkin many votes.*
*