Awards race heats up
Not too early for favorites
The trade deadline is a week away and the Bruins will hit the 60-game mark on Monday. We are officially in the stretch run.
At this point of the season, we can draw a strong enough bead on the races for the regular season awards that we can start filling out the ballots. That would be in pencil, for sure. But while there is still enough time for players to overtake emerging favorites, now is as good a time as any to get a jumpstart.
Here’s a look at how things are shaping up, at least to one man’s eye:
HART TROPHY
LEADER: Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning. Yes, the Bolts are stacked and Kucherov certainly benefits from being in such a potent lineup. But at this point, you’d be working too hard to find flaws if you didn’t go with Kucherov. The most productive player on the runaway Presidents Trophy club, Kucherov leads the league in points, power-play points and is third in even strength points. He’s on pace for a 130-point season. It looks like he’s the guy.
CONTENDERS: Johnny Gaudreau has the Flames reaching for heights few expected when the season started. Nathan MacKinnon is the focal point of the league’s most explosive line, but the Avalanche have fallen off badly. Connor McDavid is still the best talent on the planet but I have a hard time voting for a player on a team that doesn’t make the playoffs
NORRIS TROPHY
LEADER: Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks. Burns has again been a beast for the Sharks. He leads the league in scoring for defensemen, is playing nearly 25 minutes per game, which would be an average of three minutes more than his career icetime average and he has a solid Corsi rating of 56.5. He’s also leading the Sharks, among the teams battling for Western Conference supremacy, in points. It would be Burns’ second Norris.
CONTENDERS: This one could go down to the end of the season. At the age of 35, the Flames’ Mark Giordano is having a career year. He will set a career high in points (55 as of Thursday), has a 56.1 percent Corsi rating and is second in the league in plus/minus at plus-28. Morgan Rielly has been a bright spot on a shaky Toronto blue line.
JACK ADAMS AWARD
LEADER: Claude Julien, Montreal Canadiens. The Habs were not nearly as good as its management thought when they hired Julien, but once they bottomed out, Julien has made them a playoff team again – and they were missing Shea Weber for a good chunk of the season.. They work their tails off under Julien. Max Domi is reborn, Carey Price is starting to come on and teenager Jesperi Kotkaniemi is showing that Julien doesn’t stifle young talent.
CONTENDERS: There are a few good ones. The Islanders’ Barry Trotz is another coach who has his team where no one expected, but there was more known talent there than in Montreal, even with the John Tavares defection. Bill Peters has done an excellent job in his first year in Calgary. And the Bruins’ Bruce Cassidy , presented with some nightmare scenarios in the first half of the season, deserves consideration.
SELKE TROPHY
LEADER: Patrice Bergeron, Bruins. This award has morphed from being given to the top defensive forward, which is still how it’s officially defined, to the best two-way forward. Some have even suggested it’s the for the best all-around player. And while Cassidy has given Bergeron and his linemates an occasional breather from their usual heavy defensive responsibilities, Bergeron is enjoying one of the best offensive seasons of his career. And his line has had to carry the team for most of the season. He missed 16 games with an upper body injury, but that’s not enough inactivity to knock him off course for a record fifth Selke.
CONTENDERS: Now that the Blues are back in contention where most of us thought they’d be, Ryan O’Reilly should get a lot of consideration. Despite St. Louis’ early struggles, O’Reilly has been good all season, with his usual strong faceoeff numbers (57.7 percent) and a decent Corsi (53 percent). He’s also taken only four minors this year.
CALDER TROPHY
LEADER: Elias Petterson, Vancouver Canucks. The 20year-old Swede is starting to run away with this one. He leads all rookies with 26-2753 totals – and he’s missed 11 games. Petterson’s got seven game-winners and he’s lifted a team that looked like it was destined for a sure DNQ into a playoff contender.
CONTENDERS: In other years, Montreal’s Kotkaniemi or Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin would have had a great shot at this award, but their chances are getting slimmer and slimmer.
VEZINA TROPHY
LEADER: Robin Lehner, Islanders. Lehner, one of the great comeback stories after going public with his battle with addiction and bipolar disorder, is a big reasons the Isles are where they are. While any goalie would benefit from Trotz’ defensive system in front of him, Lehner was among the leaders in save percentage (.929) and goals against average (2.08) going into the weekend. The only question is whether he could get the award while splitting time with Thomas Greiss, who has a .930 save percentage himself (2.20 GAA).
CONTENDERS: Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevskiy usually has a big margin for error with the Bolts’ explosive offense, but he’s got a .924 save percentage and has been very good. I have my doubts about Toronto’s Frederik Andersen in the playoffs, but he’s had to play behind a porous Leafs’ defense and covered up the mistakes for the most part.
Swinging away
Flyers’ coach Scott Gordon wasn’t too thrilled with the meager one-game suspension for Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin‘s “high stick” on Philly’s Michael Raffl.
“It wasn’t a high stick. It was a baseball swing,” Gordon told reporters. “Just because you didn’t connect doesn’t mean it wasn’t vicious. I don’t think he should be rewarded just because he didn’t connect.”
But that’s how NHL justice has always been determined. And besides, Raffl’s sucker punch to the back of Malkin’s head kind of started the whole thing.
Strong move
The Canadiens bolstered the bottom of their lineup by picking up fourth liners Nate Thompson and Dale Weise. Thompson was one of the Kings’ better players in the B’s 5-4 overtime win over LA here and, if Weise is going to rejuvenate his career, it stands to reason it would be in Montreal, where he’s had his most success. He certainly made his presence felt in 2014, when the underdog Habs’ upset the Presidents Trophy-winning Bruins. …
With his team barely clinging to a playoff spot and trade rumors surrounding Eric Staal and a few other Wild players, Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau went out on a limb during a radio appearance on KFAN in Minneapolis.
“I can tell you right now: I’m not Joe Namath, but we are going to make the playoffs,” said Boudreau. “And we’re going to be someone hard to deal with… I’m making that prediction right now.”
We’ll find out by the Feb. 25 deadline if GM Paul Fenton agrees with him.