Current vote leaders at this writing (all that have 2,000 or more votes):
Corban Knight, North Dakota, Senior, Forward 16,095 votes
Johnny Gaudreau, Boston College, Sophomore, Forward 13,053 votes
Frank Slubowski, Western Michigan, Sophomore, Goalie 4,642 votes
Mike Seidel, Minnesota-Duluth, Senior, Forward 3,203 votes
Greg Miller, Cornell, Senior, Forward 2,919 votes
Ryan Walters, Nebraska-Omaha, Junior, Forward 2,878 votes
Drew LeBlanc, St. Cloud State, Senior, Forward 2,254 votes
Eric Hartzell, Quinnipiac, Senior, Goalie 2,002 votes
These goofy "standings" are an advertisement for why I don't think the fans should be involved in the voting since the fans’ vote accounts for a full 1 percent of the total ballot in each phase of selecting the actual award recipient. If they can't do better than this, it shouldn't be allowed to count at all, although 1% isn't enough of a factor to corrupt the process.
Frank Slubowski? He's only the 4th ranked goalie in his own conference. Mike Seidel? Ranked 36th in the country in scoring? A plus/minus of +1 for the season? Greg Miller? 16 total points on the season for a .500 team? He's not even in the top 50 in the country in scoring. Even if you are a fan of one of these player's teams I don't see how anybody in good conscience could cast a vote for any of those 3 guys. Anybody reading this thread can easily come up with at least a dozen more deserving players than these 3.
All the other players at least deserve a place on this leaderboard although perhaps not necessarily in this order.
The interesting thing about this list is that I can make a way better case for the bottom three players on it, maybe, than I can for the top 3 (really, the top 2 since Slubowski shouldn't be anywhere near 3rd).
My partisan viewpoint as far as Walters is concerned is this. Here we have the leading scorer in the nation, who plays on the top scoring line in the nation, playing for the WCHA's 2nd place team, a team that has a realistic shot at the MacNaughton Cup, all while doing this on a team picked either 7th or 8th preseason in the conference depending on whether you were asking the coaches or the writers. And, that team is currently the #3 offense in the country and has been in the top 3 every week since before Thanksgiving.
That's some pretty big scoreboard, as Romey would say.
As an aside, USCHO has written stories in the last week pontificating on the Hobey chances of Minnesota's Nick Bjugstad as well as Brett Gensler of Bentley, neither of whom have a snowball's chance in hell of winning it. Not even their own homer fans think so. Gensler has 140 total votes and Bjugstad has all of 106.
Of the names above. I'd have Walters, LeBlanc, Hartzell, & Gaudreau all tied at 1A's and Knight a close second to that pack. You can make great cases for any of my top 4.
What's everybody's top 5 or so, right now?
