Awards ballot and things of that nature
Roast me at your own peril
The NHL Awards were announced in full on Tuesday night. Well, the rest of them anyhow. The big ones. After the Selke and Lady Byng and others were relegated to being pre-show awards, the main event went down and the results weren’t really surprising at all.
Toronto’s Auston Matthews took home the Hart Trophy as MVP. Rangers savior Igor Shesterkin won the Vezina as best goalie. Colorado’s Cale Makar took down the Norris as the league’s top defenseman. Detroit’s Moritz Seider won the Calder as the top rookie. All are inarguable apart from liking your favorite player more than the guy who won.
But you already knew this and just came here to see what my ballot looked like in full. Here it is, with comments to follow after each category. Winners bolded and italicized for extra emphasis on how smart/dumb I am.
HART
1. Igor Shesterkin - NYR
2. Cale Makar - COL
3. Auston Matthews - TOR
4. Connor McDavid - EDM
5. Jason Robertson - DAL
It turns out I was the only voter in the PHWA to have Makar second on their ballot (he finished eighth in Hart voting). It’s never comfortable to be the outlier. It’s not my first time being such so it’s not new — but it is a bit intimidating because there’s that feeling in the back of your mind you have to justify the selection. I don’t think I really have to do that here with Makar.
I was definitely not alone in having Shesterkin as my top pick and really, where are the Rangers without him this season? Definitely not making the Eastern Conference final that’s for sure. Are the even a playoff team without him? I make a similar argument for having Robertson fifth on my ballot. The Stars were allergic to scoring and Robertson posted a monster season.
McDavid could win Hart every year and it would be fine. It’s like Barry Bonds in MLB back in the day when he should’ve/could’ve been MVP every season for like 10 seasons running. They’re the best by far and to “impress” people you have to do other worldly stuff literally every game, every day. It’s not fair, but that’s how it goes. When you’re the best, the best is expected and anything less is disappointing. Living up to that standard is unenviable.
NORRIS
1. Cale Makar - COL
2. Roman Josi - NSH
3. Victor Hedman - TBL
4. Adam Fox - NYR
5. Charlie McAvoy - BOS
Well, well look at your boy having his top five be the same five players that landed in the top five in voting. To me this was a three-player battle and Makar had the superior season. Josi’s offense was beautiful to behold, a throwback to the days of Paul Coffey in Edmonton and Pittsburgh just not with multiple hall of fame players around him to feed pucks. Hedman has fallen into the same trap as McDavid where his excellence is expected every minute he’s on the ice. In all honesty he should’ve been No. 2 on my ballot. What’s fascinating is Josi had more first place votes than Makar did (98-92) and just barely missed on first, so maybe I’m the dumb guy here. But all of Makar’s votes were for first, second, or third. Josi’s covered the first four spots. Who knew every vote counted?
CALDER
1. Moritz Seider - DET
2. Trevor Zegras - ANH
3. Anton Lundell - FLA
4. Lucas Raymond - DET
5. Cole Caufield - MTL
All right, here comes the heat.
No, I did not vote for Michael Bunting. Yes, he qualifies as a rookie under the rules and should be judged as such. But when I rack up his accomplishments as a 26 year-old as compared to the others that made my ballot whose ages were 19, 20, or 21 at most (three of them with zero NHL games played before this season) I consider their accomplishments as more impressive and rank out higher.
Listen, Bunting had a great season in Toronto… after three full AHL seasons in Tucson and half a season with Arizona last year. Bunting’s story is an inspirational one about perseverance and how landing in a good situation can turn your career around. Votes are never personal and shouldn’t be taken as such. I wanted to at least explain my thought process on it and I understand there will be disagreements with it.
LADY BYNG
1. Jaccob Slavin - CAR
2. Kyle Connor - WPG
3. Victor Olofsson - BUF
4. Alex Iafallo - LAK
5. Josh Bailey - NYI
For as much of a thought process I put into the Calder vote, figuring out the Lady Byng is nigh impossible. Sorting by fewest penalty minutes versus minutes played is probably the base for it. I do wonder if there’s part of this award that goes along with being kind to us media nerds, too. You know, being gentlemanly on and off the ice and such.
This is an award that should probably be voted on by the officials, but hey, we will adjudicate it as long as we’re asked to do so. If you have bones to pick over anyone’s Lady Byng ballot, please, go outside for a little while.
SELKE
1. Patrice Bergeron - BOS
2. Anthony Cirelli - VAN
3. Auston Matthews - TOR
4. Rasmus Asplund - BUF
5. Aleksander Barkov - FLA
The Selke is one award I really try to break down numbers to cut through everything and not just throw five guys who score a bunch of points but also take defensive zone faceoffs on instead. I had one blind spot and a couple oops moments.
My blind spot was apparently Calgary’s Elias Lindholm who finished second in voting. As you can see, he is not on my ballot and clearly through my research my eyes passed over his name a lot? Perceptions and actuality playing a role here too because I’ve clearly not noticed his defensive skills and ability but have definitely noticed him more for his offensive abilities. He’s a monster in possession and plays a fair amount on the Flames’ penalty kill. I will not miss Lindholm’s defensive prowess again in the future.
The oops moments come in Ryan O’Reilly and Phillip Danault. Both have been outstanding defensive forwards for a long time and O’Reilly I’ve even watched hundreds of times in person. I know how good he is and how well he plays the center position. Did I take him for granted while looking for numbers to justify the rest of my ballot? It’s possible. I’m not being coy in saying that, just that it may have been the case.
Danault I feel a bit embarrassed about because I’ve been a hipster for Danault on the Selke award. Always felt he wasn’t getting enough credit for how well he played the position in Montreal only to see attention come to him a year or so later. Ah-ha, sweet justification! And here I am not voting for him this year. It’s not because he wasn’t good, he was, just other players made more sense to me.
I was one of three to put Rasmus Asplund on my ballot (Tom Timmermann in St. Louis and Marisa Ingemi were the others) so I have company. If I were to go over his case again, I would’ve taken a closer look at his matchups and perhaps my vote alters a bit. That said, he was outstanding this season and was worthy of recognition for his efforts. It’s not even a homer vote, either, the dude was great defensively. It will be interesting to see if Don Granato gives him and his line more difficult assignments next season.
If you give a care about the all-star and all-rookie teams, I’ll share my ballots for those as well but if you have questions/complaints about those… leave them in a comment. I see them all. My main hope in voting on these is to make sure I don’t list a guy at the wrong position and get the ballot tossed out.
NHL All-Star Team
Center
Auston Matthews - TOR
Connor McDavid - EDM
Steven Stamkos - TBL
Right Wing
Mikko Rantanen - COL
Vladimir Tarasenko - STL
Mitchell Marner - TOR
Left Wing
Johnny Gaudreau - CGY
Jonathan Huberdeau - FLA
Kirill Kaprizov - MIN
Defense
Cale Makar - COL
Roman Josi - NSH
Victor Hedman - TBL
Adam Fox - NYR
Charlie McAvoy - BOS
Devon Toews - COL
Goaltender
Igor Shesterkin - NYR
Jacob Markstrom - CGY
Ilya Sorokin - NYI
NHL All-Rookie Team
Forward
Trevor Zegras - ANH
Anton Lundell - FLA
Lucas Raymond - DET
Defense
Moritz Seider - DET
Timothy Liljegren - TOR
Goaltender
Jeremy Swayman - BOS