Toronto Maple Leafs: Matthews and Bunting Deserve NHL Awards
The Toronto Maple Leafs are having their best regular season in the history of their franchise.
Ever since the Toronto Maple Leafs passed 50 wins and 105 points, every win and point they pick up from here on out sets a team record.
Obviously, when you have such a good season, you’re going to have some players who deserve to win NHL awards. The Leafs have never been a team that wins very many awards, and to their great shame, since the NHL expanded beyond six teams they have never won a major award.
The Stanley Cup has eluded them, but so has a scoring title (Art Ross), MVP (Hart Trophy), Vezina (Best Goalie,) and Norris (Best Defenseman).
Auston Matthews won the Calder as the league’s best rookie, Pat Burns won the Jack Adams as the NHL’s best coach, and Doug Gilmour once won a Selke for being the NHL’s best defensive forward, and while those are nice, they aren’t as revered as the Hart, Vezina and Norris.
This year, all that could change. Let’s take a look at who on the Toronto Maple Leafs could win an NHL Award this summer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Norris and Vezina Trophies
The Norris and Vezina are two trophies no Leafs player has won since the Original Six, and that tradition is going to continue this year. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
While Morgan Rielly is flirting with a career high in points and is having an excellent season, he’s not a Norris candidate this season.
Roman Josi is on the verge of a 90 point season and might still have a shot at 100, while Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche is arguably having an even better season than Josi.
Both players would be in the MVP talks if Matthews wasn’t completely running away with it, and as it is, one of them won’t even win the Norris. There are probably ten good candidates for 3rd place in the Norris voting, but if we are being honest, Morgan Rielly, though he’s having a great season, likely isn’t among them.
The Vezina Trophy is even easier to predict than the Norris.
Igor Shesterkin has been the NHL’s best goalie and is even a longshot MVP candidate. Jack Campbell started strong and was a keeping pace into December, but he fell off big time as he battled injury, while Shesterkin has shut-outs in his last two starts, after briefly seeming human for about a week.
Campbell could potentially one day win this award, but he will not be nominated this season.
Selke and Jack Adams
The Selke Trophy for the NHL’s best defensive forward likely goes once again to Patrice Bergeron who does not age, and is still an elite defensive forward who puts up a ton of points, despite being approximately 48 years old.
As far as I know, Bergeron is the heavy favorite to win this award, but Auston Matthews would also be a fair choice when you consider that not only is he an elite defender, but he scored a goal per game for 51 games, and topped 100 points.
Also unlikely to win and also deserving of a nomination is Mitch Marner who is not only a great defender like Matthews, but also provides solid penalty killing on one of the NHL’s best short-handed teams.
The Jack Adams usually goes to the coach who has the worst roster and somehow does the best with it, so that is almost certainly going to be Darryl Sutter in Calgary. The Flames have had a crazy season with pretty much the same roster that missed last year’s playoffs.
That said, Sheldon Keefe has the Leafs in 3rd overall despite getting absolutely putrid goaltending for almost the entire season. He won’t win it, but he’s just as good of a candidate as NHL else. Truthfully, this award is the most subjective of any of the awards and there are always going to be ten good candidates.
If I had to guess, I would say Keefe doesn’t even get nominated.
The Calder Trophy
The NHL Awards are extremely stupid because they all come with weird definitions, while strange interpretations are just pretty much taken from granted and assumed to be baked into the evaluation process.
For example, the rookie of the year doesn’t just go to the best rookie. No way , that would be far too simple.
There is a long and complicated definition of what constitutes a rookie.
Then after that, people still factor in age, professional experience, linemates, team strength, usage etc.
Michael Bunting fits the technical definition of a rookie, he leads rookies in total scoring and is one off the goal scoring lead. He is miles ahead of everyone in advanced stats.
So he should win the rookie of the year easily, right?
Not so fast.
The NHL Rookie of the Year Award considers pedigree. Bunting is just some no name loser who came out of nowhere. He’s not a sexy first round future superstar like Trevor Zegres, who is like seven years younger and has only a couple points less. (Like playing first line on the NHL’s best team is somehow a detriment, but here we are).
What about the fact that Moritz Seider plays as his team’s #1 defenseman, a harder position?
You can find a number of reasons to discount what Bunting has done, but in my opinion he fits the definition of rookie that the NHL has had a hundred years to get right, so he should win the award, because no one is even close to him.
Now, usually when someone says “it’s not even close” they are just being lazy and saying that in place of an argument, but in this case it’s actually true.
Bunting has 23 goals and 60 points, but remember, he isn’t on his team’s first power-play unit, which means that if he was, he’d easily bein the 30+ 75+ range.
Bunting has a whopping 5 points on the power-play and is fifth in league scoring at 5v5, and has more points than Draisaitl or Kaprizov.
He is among the NHL leaders in GAR (Goals Above Replacement) and is having one of the best 5v5 seasons of any player since the NHL began tracking advanced statistics. He should be an absolute slam-dunk, unanimous choice for the Calder Trophy.
In fact, there isn’t a single NHL trophy this year where the winner is more obvious.
The Hart Trophy
The 2021-22 Hart Trophy belongs to Auston Matthews.
He leads the NHL in goals, with 58 and was the first player since the mid-90s to score 50 goals in 50 games.
He missed games to start the year because of off-season wrist surgery, then had to get up to speed, but once he did, he scored at an 82 goal pace for 51 games. He missed two games with a suspension and has missed the last three.
There is no doubt in my mind that if he had played every game this season and was healthy in all of them, that he’d be trying to hit 80 as the season wound down.
As it stands, he’s got four more games to hit 60 and become the first member of the Toronto Maple Leafs to do so.
He has 102 points and 58 goals in 70 games. He is having the best season anyone in the NHL has had since the NHL salary cap came into effect.
He’s the best scorer and among the best defenders. He is the NHL’s best and most complete player and the obvious MVP.
Any conversations about who is “most valuable to their team” and try to argue that because he also plays with Mitch Marner are just idiotic in my opinion. Matthews is the best players and he deserves the Hart.
Connor McDavid should be second, and Mitch Marner third. Matthews Tkachuk also deserves some love, but others like Makar, Josi, Shesterkin, Draisaitl, and Huberdau just don’t measure up.
Next. Top 10 Reasons This Year Is Different. dark
To conclude: Auston Matthews should be a lock to win the first Major Individual award for the Toronto Maple Leafs since the NHL expanded beyond six teams. Additionally, Michael Bunting should win the Calder as the rookie of the year, but no other Leafs are deserving of hardware.