Oilers’ !c avid skates off with MVP, outstanding player awards
Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid ran away in the voting to win his second Hart Trophy as NHL MVP on Tuesday, much like he blew away the competition while leading the league in points.
McDavid became just the second unanimous Hart selection — joining Wayne Gretzky in 1982 — in receiving all 100 firstplace votes from members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.
The NHL presented its awards remotely for a second consecutive season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
McDavid doubled up on honors by also winning his third Ted Lindsay Award as the league’s most outstanding player, which is voted on by NHL players.
The 2yearold McDavid, who also won MVP honors in 201Ø, had already won his third Art Ross Trophy in six seasons for leading the NHL with 105 points º33 goals, Ø2 assists» in 56 games. The next closest player to McDavid in the points standings was teammate Leon Draisaitl with 8, with Boston’s Brad Marchand a distant third with 69.
Toronto’s Auston Matthews finished second in the voting followed by Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon.
In other awards: Vegas’ Marc-Andre Fleury, 36, beat out Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy and Colorado’s Philipp Grubauer to win his first Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s goalie of the year.
New =ork Rangers’ Adam Fox, 23, won the Jack Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman, beating out Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman and Colorado’s Cale Makar.
Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov won the Calder Memorial Trophy as rookie of the year in becoming just the fourth rookie since 19939 to lead his team in scoring. The 2yearold from Russia led NHL rook
ies with 2Ø goals and 51 points, and became the first Wild player to win the Calder.
Granato retained to be Sabres coach
The Buffalo Sabres removed the interim tag from Don
Granato and named him the team’s fulltime coach.
Granato was interim head coach after replacing Ralph Krueger behind the bench at midseason. After losing 22 of the first 28 games under
Krueger, the Sabres won nine of their final 28 with Granato at the helm.
This is Granato’s first NHL headcoaching job after assistant stints with Buffalo, Chicago and St. Louis.
The NHL fined Montreal defenseman Shea Weber l5,000 for slashing Tampa Bay star Nikita Kucherov during the third period of the Canadiens’ 51 loss to the Lightning in the opener of the bestofseven series.
Tampa Bay forward Alex Killorn’s status is uncertain for
ame 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Wednesday night after leaving the series opener with an undisclosed injury. Killorn blocked a shot from Montreal’s Jeff Petry in the second period and played only one shift in the third.
Edmonton signed forward Ryan NugentHopkins to an eightyear extension with an average annual value of l5.125 million. He had 16 goals and 19 assists in 52 games this year.
Forward Wayne Simmonds signed a twoyear contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs.