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Ducks captain Getzlaf: We knew MVP candidates would be all East

Ryan Getzlaf

Ryan Getzlaf wasn’t surprised to learn that neither he nor Chicago captain Jonathan Toews were named finalists for this year’s Hart Trophy.

Not surprised at all.

“We were pretty well aware it was going to be all East this year,” Getzlaf told ESPN’s Craig Custance. “That’s just the way it is.”

Getzlaf led the Ducks with 49 points in 44 games this season -- pacing Anaheim to the third-best overall record in the league -- while Toews was Chicago’s second-leading scorer (48 points in 47 games) while captaining the club to its first Presidents’ Trophy in over 20 years.

Yet when the voting results were made public, neither Getzlaf nor Toews was a finalist.

Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and John Tavares were announced on Friday as the three nominees -- and Getzlaf has a theory on how that came to be.

“The only time the media in the East sees anyone in the West is when we play them,” he explained. “You’re not going to see our games, the media, staying up to 1 or 2 in the morning to watch.”

The Hart Trophy is one of five awards voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, along with the Selke, Vezina Norris, Calder and Lady Byng.

This year, according to Custance, 46.4 percent of voters were from Eastern Conference cities, 32.8 percent were from Western Conference cities and 20.8 percent were from an international chapter that doesn’t cover specific teams.

Custance also noted that a record 178 PHWA members voted this year.