The Toronto Maple Leafs were shutout of the NHL awards, most of the best of which were announced last night.
Auston Matthews – the best player in Toronto Maple Leafs history – parlayed his 41 goals in 52 games into a second place finish for the Hart Trophy, but obviously that paled in comparison to what Connor McDavid (who won unanimously) accomplished.
Still, the Leafs haven’t ever had a Hart Trophy winner in a league with seven or more team and this was a step in the right direction.
Matthews’ scored 41 goals in 52 games and he also played about ten games where he couldn’t even shoot the puck, an injury that possibly cost us one of the greatest seasons in NHL history.
The NHL Awards
The NHL previously announced some of the lesser awards – such as the Selke, Lady Byng, Jack Adams and GM of the Year.
The NHL GMs, angry that the Leafs had the nerve to step outside of the Old Boys Club, trolled the Leafs by giving their incompetent ex-GM the award for the second year in a row, a decision that makes absolutely no sense if you look at the moves he has made.
As for the rest of them, no Leafs were involved, though Matthews did receive a few Lady Byng votes, and of course he won the Rocket, but that isn’t voted on and we already knew he was going to.
Last night the NHL gave out their four biggest Awards, and McDavid the Hart, Adam Fox the Norris, Marc Andre Fleury the Vezina and Kirill Kaprizov won the Calder.
Other than the Hart (Matthews received 69/100 possible second place votes) the Leafs didn’t have a horse in the race. It was disappointing that Jack Campbell didn’t receive a single vote for the Vezina, but realistically, he only played half a season, so I guess we can’t complain too much.
The best thing about this year’s awards is that, for possibly the first time ever, they went to the right players. The NHL Award Voters have long resisted advanced stats and objective analysis, and so it seemed automatic that they would give reputation based awards to Victor Hedman and Andre Vasilevsky, but for once, they didn’t.
The only thing you can really complain about this year is the jokers who gave Selke votes to Leon Draisaitl, a player whose defensive game is so bad that when he won the scoring title he barely made his team better at even-strength.
Other than that, great job everyone! Would have liked to see some Toronto Maple Leafs in there, by which I mean I would have liked to see some more Leafs deserve to be there. Next year maybe, when Matthews is healthy, Campbell plays a full season, Rielly gets hot and Nick Robertson breaks out.