I haven't had a chance to watch any HE games this year, so I'm not going to say
that Jason Krog shouldn't win the Hobey.  I just thought that I could provide
responses to the specific arguments Greg Ambrose made to keep the discussion
going.
 
In regards to Drury, I think that there are more arguments to be made than
simply point scoring.  He REALLY impressed me at last year's Final Four.  He
shadowed Brendan Morrison and was the number one reason BU won that game with
his defense alone.  I have no idea whether he does that on a regular basis, but
if he does, combined with the points he scores, it makes him an awfully tough
candidate to beat for the best player in Hockey East.
 
One thing to consider when looking at Krog's scoring is that HE is, by a large
margin, the highest scoring conference in the country.  These teams are putting
the puck in the net an average of 7.29 times a game.  The WCHA is second at
6.48, and the ECAC and CCHA are barely breaking six.  If one adjusts for the
league difference (obviously assuming that a large amount of this difference is
due to something other than the fact that Krog and company are just better
scorers), then Bill Muckalt, Jeff Halpern and Jeff Hamilton are all close to
Krog's points per game figure.  Looking at a stat besides simply points,
Michigan State's Mike York is +20, which beats Krog's +19; this is also a stat
that should be modified for overall league scoring, but it also involves
removing power play goals, and I'm just not going to go to that much trouble.
Actually, MSU has some really gaudy +/- ratings, led by Tyler Harlton's +26,
but this isn't directly comparable to Krog, since Harlton is a defenseman and
doesn't anything like Krog's point total.  I'll leave the forward vs.
defenseman argument for some other time.
 
Karl Goehring's numbers for North Dakota put me in a quandary.  He's got a 1.22
GAA and a save percentage of almost 95%.  Of course, he's had to grab playing
time from Aaron Schweitzer, who only led the Sioux to the national title last
year, so he doesn't have enough playing time to be a serious contender unless
he gets a full time nod and keeps producing like this.  Probably we'll have to
wait until next year and see if he keeps it up (Marc Magliarditti, anyone?)
 
All in all, running the numbers leads me to the conclusion that Jason Krog is a
very serious Hobey contender, but he certainly isn't running away and hiding
from everyone.  I'd probably find people's arguments a bit more convincing if
everyone weren't pushing a candidate from the team they primarily root for.
Fortunately, that's not a problem for me this year.  We'll see if Wyatt Smith
or Dave Spehar can step forward nex year.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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