[azicet]

It's time for my annual NHL Awards for the regular season:

Hart Trophy: Sidney Crosby. No brainer. Nobody even close. Maybe if Getzlaf & Perry merged into 1 person, he/they might have a shot but no player is as dominant as Sid.

Fart Trophy: Colton Orr. 54 games played. ZERO points. Only 110 PIMs too so he's not even that good of a goon. Sorry Leafs fans.

Norris Trophy: Duncan Keith. Before all you Erik Karlsson fans go off on me, your boy in Ottawa was a -15 +/- while Duncan was +22. That's a 37 point swing. Oh and Duncan took almost 60 less shots too. If he was allowed to shoot first and ask questions later, I'm sure his point total would be much higher, (and the fact he was only 13 points away from Karlsson shows he's just as formidable.) As much as I don't like Duncan Keith, (mainly due to what a tough autograph he is to get in person), I have to give him respect for what he does on the ice.

Steven Seagal Trophy: Mike Weber. Had to make sure I had the right Weber as I would have been killed putting Shea in there by mistake. Mike played 68 games with only 1 goal, 8 assists and a-29 +/-, 2nd worst in the league to Alex Edler, (who had 13 more points).

Vezina Trophy: Tuukka Rask. 2.04 GAA & .930 save % despite playing 58 games & facing 1,600 shots. Plus he won 36 of those games. Another toughie with the Sharpie but once again, you can't dispute the numbers.

V##ina Trophy: Evgeni Nabokov/Anders Nilsson/Kevin Poulin. a huge reason why the NY Islanders are picking 5th overall once again in the NHL Draft. Some of the worst save percentages & GAA this side of DiPietro. If only Milbury had kept Luongo & not traded him, (and Olli Jokinen), for Mark Parrish & Oleg Kvasha, the Isles wouldn't be do deficient in goal.

Calder Trophy: Nathan MacKinnon. Another no brainer. Easily the top rookie this year in terms of points and how he helped the Avs go from a team with potential of making the playoffs to an actual playoff contender.

K-Mart Trophy: Rasmus Ristolainen. Who? Played 34 games for Buffalo with only 4 points and a woeful -15 +/-. If you pull any rookie cards of this guy, you have every right to complain.

Jack Adams Trophy: Patrick Roy. As if this guy needed any more hardware to go with his illustrious career. Another huge reason the Avs are where they are right now.

Jack @$$ Trophy: Jack Capuano. The Islanders lost more 3rd period leads than any other team in the NHL and also had one of the worst win-loss records at home in the NHL. He, along with GM Garth Snow MUST have x-rated pictures of the Isles owner Charles Wang with a donkey or something. No other reason why they're still employed.

Biggest Surprise: Tampa Bay's play this season. Let's see. You lose your franchise player to free agency before the season. Then you have your biggest star go out with injury for a prolonged period of time. Then you trade your heart and soul to a conference rival. All the while you have no idea who your goaltender is. The fact that they not only stayed strong but made the playoffs is a testament to their will.

Biggest Disappointment: The Islanders losing out on trades for Thomas Vanek - TWICE. First they trade perennial 30 goal scorer & John Tavares's best friend Matt Moulson, plus a 1st round pick, (now a lottery one), and a 2nd rounder for Vanek. Then they trade Vanek at the deadline for a smallish prospect who's injured and a conditional 2nd round pick. So in essence, they traded a 30 goal scorer, a 40 goal scorer and a lottery pick for a small, injured prospect. Now you know why we're the laughingstock of the NHL.

Let me know what you think of my award winners!

[Optimus_Prime]

Ha, i love reading these and the names. Of course i don't follow hockey close enough to argue your points, I do enjoy them. Plus, than i sit here and talk to my friends about what you just said and steal all the credit for my own. Hot dog.

Although, your ***** trophy, I'm curious as to how many shots the islanders goaltenders faced compared to the rest of the league.

The avalanche are a surprise this year and a lot is due to roy and that amazing young talent they have.
As well as tampa bay. Like you said, they lost huge. It was funny last year they had 2 top 5 (or something close to that) point getters and they didnt even make the playoffs. It's funny now to read this knowing they just got swept though.

[fred bear]

Great read!

In my opinion, though, I disagree with Crosby as the Hart. I read all over the place that it's a no-brainer, but I disagree. The Pens have shown that they can win without Crosby given their depth. I think he's one of the best in the game, but 'most valuable to his team'... not as obvious. I think Giroux meant more to Philadelphia and, the unpopular choice, Ovechkin meant more to Washington. Ovy was -35, but he scored 50. Imagine where the Caps would have been with even an 'average' stars 25-30...

I'm also a homer to my Red Wings' Mike Babcock for the Jack Adams this year. I agree that Roy did a ton for the Avs, but look at the under-performing talent (previous season) he had to work with. Only 1 rookie who got significant playing time, who ends up being the runaway Calder winner, and a goalie who goes from 0.903/3.02 to 0.927/2.41 and Varlamov faced more shots per game this season than last... PA Parenteau was probably the only guy who had a worse season and the rest of the team more than made up for his drop to 0.6 pts/game... For Detroit, Babcock dealt with an uncharacteristic 10 rookies seeing ice time this season, with more than a couple logging more than a half-season worth of games and he still managed to get them into the playoffs. We can say the East is easier, but the spot wasn't theirs until the next to last game of the season. Just looking at games lost to injury from some of the more experienced Wings - 37 Datsyuk, 37 Zetterberg, 56 Weiss, 3 Kronwall, and Howard missed a week or two as well... Ultimately, I think Roy wins the award, but I think he did more with more than what Babcock did with the Wings.

[onoxxxregretso]

I'm an Avs fan and my vote for Jack Adams goes to Babcock. The amount of injuries he dealt with to star players was unreal and they still made the playoffs.

[stastny26avs]

Unfortunately I don't think they will look that much into it....

When it comes down to it, Detroit was a playoff team last year and a playoff team this year. Everybody will focus on second to worst last year and division champs this year for Colorado.

We should clean up this year. MacKinnon-Calder, Roy-Jack Adams, O'Reilly-Lady Byng. Ok, maybe I'm a little biased hahahaha.

[fred bear]

Unfortunately I don't think they will look that much into it....

When it comes down to it, Detroit was a playoff team last year and a playoff team this year. Everybody will focus on second to worst last year and division champs this year for Colorado.

We should clean up this year. MacKinnon-Calder, Roy-Jack Adams, O'Reilly-Lady Byng. Ok, maybe I'm a little biased hahahaha.

Biased or not, I think you're 100% right that all three of those end up with Colorado this year. And deservedly so!

I agree with you too about the Adams focus. Roy took a 'last place team' in the West and turned them into a contender while Babcock simply 'made it into the playoffs, again...' I re-read THN's 2012-13 predictions last year and they had the Avs at 14 in the west. Their prediction was that for the Avs to go higher "... Varlamov need to be healthy and consistent. ... The Matt Duchene's and Peter Stastny's of the roster need to shine bright." They didn't do it in 12-13, but did in 13-14. Roy deserves a lot of credit, but I'll bet a young team finishing 15th in the West provided a lot of experience and hard-knock lessons too...

[azicet]

Just wanted to update on the question about the Isles goalies. Nabokov faced 1085 shots for .902 save ÷ while Poulin had 820 shots for a .896. Nilsson faced 548 shots for a .891÷. Atrocious.