Personally, and this is coming from a person who values Offensive contribution
much more than Defensive contribution, I don't see why this is ridiculed so much.
Now personally since following Hockey, I would never say a Defenseman has been the best Player in the League. In fact, most years I would say they aren't even top 5.
Yet some people value Defensive play quite a bit.
Let's take a look back. Vladimir Konstantinov was regarded by many as the best Defensive Player in the League before his Accident. In a League that was obviously changing towards Defense and physical play, Konstantinov had a good argument to be the best at the dominant style of play.
There were quite a few Players and Coaches as well as tons of Media writers who thought Chris Pronger was the best Player in the World in 2000. He did win the Hart Trophy that year.
I've noticed on some of the Hart and Lester B. Pearson threads on HFBoards, that some people consider Nicklas Lidstrom as the best or one of the best Players this year, though he doesn't have the support from the Media or the Players and Coaches as much as Pronger did.
Having watched all three performances by all three defenseman, I would definitely say that if Pronger in 2000 and Lidstrom now can be argued for as the best Player in the World, than so can Konstantinov in 1997.
I personally do not consider Konstantinov to be a top 5 player in 1997 (Mario Lemieux, Eric Lindros, Jaromir Jagr, Dominik Hasek, and Teemu Selanne) or Pronger to be a top 5 player in 2000 (Jaromir Jagr, Pavel Bure, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Mark Recchi) or Lidstrom this year (Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Daniel Alfredsson, Pavel Datsyuk, Jarome Iginla).
This is due to the way I see the Game and the importance I place on different aspects but I can easily see why some people (like Ted Lindsay) would say otherwise as the place importance on different things.
In fact, Lindsay's evaluation of Konstantinov is extremely informative to those who didn't see him play: "He described Konstantinov as "a gifted person," a skilled bodychecker who was a magnificent skater and had the ability to go up ice and act as a fourth forward and still get back across his own blue line in time to defend."
Bringing up Doug Harvey as a comparison also helps, not only in evaluating Konstantinov, but also in how Lindsay sees the Game, and what he favors.
It's not like Lindsay just left it at saying "greatest hockey player in the world" but he elaborated on it.
This article tells me much more about Vladimir Konstantinov, his play, and how good he was, than his Norris Trophy voting record or even his Offensive stats.
These kind of elaborated opinions are the next best thing to watching the Player yourself.
Lastly, I don't see how this one example (or the Gretzky examples) in anyway destroy the credibility of Player and Coaches opinions, as especially when they are elaborated on as is the case here, they are more valuable in my eyes then the bunch of anonymous opinions without argument that make up Awards, or even stats, which only give part of the story mostly relating to Offense.
