MVN - Most Valuable Network

NHL Awards Handed Out

The NHL handed out their annual awards, many of which were no surprise at all. NHL.com’s on-line store was briefly selling Alexander Ovechkin, winner of the Hart Trophy t-shirts, earlier this month. Whoops. Ovechkin did take home the Hart Trophy for MVP, as well as the Lester Pearson award.  He also earned the Rocket Richad Trophy with a sizzling 65 goal effort this season.

Blackhawk’s youngster, Patrick Kane, took home the Calder trophy for Rookie of the year. Chicago is one of those teams that will be very good in the next couple of years. They’ve had to wait a while and slog through some awful seasons, but they’ve been able to draft well and have a very talented core of youth that reminds one of the current Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Jack Adams award for coach of the year was Bruce Boudreau. He really gave the Washington Capitals a chance and got them into the playoffs. Considering the direction the team was going earlier in the season, Boudreau came in and really turned things around.

Under the “no surprise at all” category was Martin Brodeur with the Vezina award for best goaltender. Are there really any other nominees? It doesn’t seem like it. Ditto for the Lidstrom, er, Norris trophy for best defenseman. Nicklas Lidstrom has won for the past three years, missed a year, and won the previous three before that. Six of the past seven years it has gone to the Red Wing blueliner. Scott Niedermayer was the only hiccup in Lidstrom’s near perfect record. It is a safe bet to say that as long as he keeps playing, they’ll just keep handing the trophy to him in June.

Fellow Red Winger, Pavel Datsyuk, took home the Selke and the Lady Byng for best defensive forward and most gentleman player. Ducks GM Brian Burke deducts pay from Ducks players if they are nominated for the Lady Byng.

Tampa Bay’s Vincent Lecavalier won the King Clancy award and Toronto’s Jason Blake came away with the Masterton Trophy. Gordie Howe, the true ageless wonder, was handed a Lifetime Achievement Award. Someday there ought to be a Howe award. It seems only fitting.

Unlike last year, there were no Ducks represented at the ceremony. Perhaps next year Sami Pahlsson can get back to Selke form and Jean-Sebastien Giguere can at least find a nomination for Vezina. Until then, time to prepare for next season.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 7:36 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.