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This week featured two very different columns from opposite sides of the country about Hart candidacy. Let’s start with Ross McKeon’s head-scratching column from Yahoo! Sports:

People in Washington and Pittsburgh won’t like to hear this, but if the season were to end today, Jarome Iginla is the league’s most valuable player…He may not have as many goals and not as many points as others, but Iginla is the living, breathing, skating definition of the award: the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.

Wow, he uses fancy words like “adjudged!” Yet it takes him three-quarters of the way through the article to actually explain why Iginla is worthy. The reader eventually gets to McKeon’s point:

So then why is Iginla the MVP? First off, remember that while Canada is plenty passionate about its hockey, and Alberta is very proud of Iginla, Calgary is not that big of a media market. It’s not as bad as a Thornton in San Jose or a Ryan Getzlaf in Anaheim, but Iginla’s games start later and the Flames aren’t featured as often on late-night highlight shows as eastern-based teams.

What a convincing argument. (Let’s not even discuss the media coverage of hockey in Washington, which pales in comparison to Calgary.) Somehow, I fail to see how Iginla gets less coverage because he’s in the West as opposed to players in the East and games out there end later. Other Western Conference teams, like the Ducks and Canucks, get plenty of play on shows like “NHL on the Fly” despite the late-ending games. But wait, it gets better:

Iginla is a fierce leader who is the best money player in his sport. When the game is on the line, Iginla is going to do something to help his team. He is clutch.

Can’t one argue that all of the top candidates are clutch players? I’d certainly say that about Ovechkin and Malkin.

But Iginla’s game goes beyond numbers. He’s the only captain among the top three candidates. He’s tough as nails, a willing combatant if he feels he needs to drop the gloves. He’s engaging, inspiring, relentless, the total package.

Iginla is definitely all of that. However, why does it matter if he’s “the only captain among the top three candidates?” How is that relevant? And how convenient that numbers suddenly don’t matter. McKeon also trots out the trite and hackneyed “Ovechkin won’t win because the Caps won’t make the playoffs” excuse. Luckily, one writer sees past that. Dan Sernoffsky of the Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News recently wrote a glowing column about Ovechkin:

But for now, just watching Ovechkin play, to see the passion he brings to the game, and to see the sheer, unadulterated joy he exhibits, has unquestioningly become a major attraction to a game that all-too-often is denigrated by those who fail to really appreciate the skill and athleticism inherent in the players and instead focus on the actions that result in suspensions or injuries.

Ovechkin seems to react the same way no matter who scores. When he’s on the ice, whether he has a hand in the goal or not, he is usually among the first to embrace the goal-scorer, and to do it with the joy and enthusiasm of a 6-year-old on Christmas morning. It is unscripted spontaneity, a huge breath of fresh air on the landscape of professional sports where athletes sometimes appear to be more interested in what shows up on the highlight clips than what transpires in the game.

Despite those who consider Ovechkin’s celebrations “showboating” (Don Cherry, I’m looking at you), Sernoffsky is one of many who actually like to see a player enjoy a moment with teammates.

He continues:

It should also put to rest, once and for all, the notion that a prerequisite for consideration of most valuable player honors must include the team for which the player plays reaching the playoffs…But there should be no question about Ovechkin. It’s doubtful that any other player has even had the impact on the Capitals that Ovechkin has had â€â€� his 60 goals account for more than 30 percent of Washington’s goal total this season â€â€� and there’s little question few players have ever had the same overall impact on the league Ovechkin has had. He is the best in the league.

Really, how much more valuable can a player be to his team? I’d ask Ross McKeon, but numbers are irrelevant to him.