Carmine Scarpaglia
My bad.
Re: Hockey East 2010-2011
Let's be honest, one was a sophomore and one was a senior. As such, they certainly were comparable this season while Atkinson rose to occasion in the postseason a bit more. It's safe to say that in their sophomore seasons, Atkinson was far better than Butler - that's about all we can truly compare at this stage. We know voters give preference to the older guys... we know this. In addition, Atkinson did most of his damage late in the year (12 pts in the playoffs), at which point most voters have already made their minds up on who they are picking for these awards... ya know, it's not like we've never seen a BC guy go nuts and lead the country in scoring while bringing his team out of nowhere to the national title game and not even make the final 10 for the Hobey or anything (see Reasoner, Marty). And finally, he didn't have the hype machine pushing the voters like Butler had. I didn't head into Conte for a single game this year with a hillbilly at the gates handing me an Atkinson for Hobey flier. UNH was 1 for 1 in the games I went to in that category for Butler.
It is what it is. Both are probably comparable. But like all these conversations we have had over the years, one has the hardware while the other doesn't.
Same amount of points, Atkinson with one more goal in 3 more games played. They are both great players, there's no denying that. Atkinson is definitely a better pro prospect, but it's not inconceivable at all to say that Butler was a more complete player this past year. In fact, the All American voters said it by putting Butler on the first team and leaving Atkinson off of the first two teams. Butler's also pretty dang good looking.
Let's be honest, one was a sophomore and one was a senior. As such, they certainly were comparable this season while Atkinson rose to occasion in the postseason a bit more. It's safe to say that in their sophomore seasons, Atkinson was far better than Butler - that's about all we can truly compare at this stage. We know voters give preference to the older guys... we know this. In addition, Atkinson did most of his damage late in the year (12 pts in the playoffs), at which point most voters have already made their minds up on who they are picking for these awards... ya know, it's not like we've never seen a BC guy go nuts and lead the country in scoring while bringing his team out of nowhere to the national title game and not even make the final 10 for the Hobey or anything (see Reasoner, Marty). And finally, he didn't have the hype machine pushing the voters like Butler had. I didn't head into Conte for a single game this year with a hillbilly at the gates handing me an Atkinson for Hobey flier. UNH was 1 for 1 in the games I went to in that category for Butler.
It is what it is. Both are probably comparable. But like all these conversations we have had over the years, one has the hardware while the other doesn't.
