Wednesday morning, the NHLPA posted some fascinating poll results. With over half of the league’s players voting, the association weighed in on topics such as best coach and which team has the best fans.
Several Capitals received some love in polling – most notably Capitals first-line center Nicklas Backstrom. Backstrom was voted the league’s most underrated player, beating out the St. Louis Blues’ Jaden Schwartz, the Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov, and the Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov.
Backstrom has 16 goals and 49 points in 63 games this season. He’s been nearly a point-per-game player since coming into the league in 2007 (777 points in 799 games).
Capitals associate coach Todd Reirden also finished second in voting for which assistant should be the next head coach. Reirden’s 7.4 percent was second only to the Leafs DJ Smith, who received 8.3 percent of the voting.
Other interesting poll results include:
- Sidney Crosby cleaned up in voting. Crosby was voted the best team player, the best role model, the most difficult forward to play against, the #1 player (any position) you would want on your team, and which player would make the best coach when they retire. Crosby also finished second in Which player would you select to start a franchise?
- Wayne Gretzky was voted the best forward all time (72.7 percent). Mario Lemieux (11.3 percent) and Sidney Crosby (4.9 percent) rounded out the top three.
- Bobby Orr was players’ best all-time defenseman and Patrick Roy was the best all-time goaltender.
- Wes McCauley was voted the league’s best official by a wide margin (47.8 percent).
- Joel Quenneville or Jon Cooper were voted the coaches that players would most like to play under.
- Erik Karlsson was voted the defenseman hardest to play against.
- Players voted 77.7 percent that they like the way points are currently awarded for a win or a loss in the regular season.
- Bell Centre received the most votes for best ice and was also players’ favorite rink to play at.
- Blackhawks fans were voted the best fans (30.4 percent). Predators fans finished second (19.4 percent). Caps fans did not make it into the top five.
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