Hopefully, you’ve gotten a chance to read “Marian Gaborik will be MVP” over at ESPN Insider. Since I put the finishing touches on that article Friday morning (with 101 degree fever…That explains things, right?!), the Rangers have played in three additional games. We’ll take a look at where the Gaborik-for-MVP campaign stands in a moment.
First off, I thought you might enjoy what Rob Vollman emailed me as feedback:
Gaborik winning MVP?
“As usual, Timo Seppa is full of Darren Puppa. Marian Gaborik? Ha! My Uncle Dennis has a better chance of winning the Hart. The veteran Finn columnist makes 2.1 errors per 60 minutes, which puts him below replacement-level. Unfortunately Seppa is not worth much in the open market, and Puck Prospectus may be stuck with him unless he signs in the KHL.”
Let’s hope most of that was tongue-in-cheek!
All right – it’s time now to see how the Sloviakian sniper has fared now with 25 games under his belt this season:
| Marian Gaborik: Pre- and post-surgery | |||||||||
| Season | GP | G | A | P | G/GP | A/GP | P/GP | S | S% |
| 2005-6 (pre) | 65 | 38 | 28 | 66 | 0.58 | 0.43 | 1.02 | 252 | 15.1% |
| 2006-7 (pre) | 48 | 30 | 27 | 57 | 0.63 | 0.56 | 1.19 | 196 | 15.3% |
| 2007-8 (pre) | 77 | 42 | 41 | 83 | 0.55 | 0.53 | 1.08 | 278 | 15.1% |
| 2008-9 (post) | 17 | 13 | 10 | 23 | 0.76 | 0.59 | 1.35 | 68 | 19.1% |
| 2009-10 (post) | 25 | 21 | 16 | 37 | 0.84 | 0.64 | 1.48 | 82 | 25.6% |
| Total (pre) | 190 | 110 | 96 | 206 | 0.58 | 0.51 | 1.08 | 726 | 15.2% |
| Total (post) | 42 | 34 | 26 | 60 | 0.81 | 0.62 | 1.43 | 150 | 22.7% |
You’ll see that the big jump post-surgery has been in Goals per Game Played, coming from a higher (dare I say Mike Bossy-like) shooting percentage. Those are scary, MVP-type numbers indeed.
If you haven’t gotten a chance to see the original article yet, check it out at espn.go.com/nhl; Puck Prospectus will have a version up shortly as well.