Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Wins Hart Trophy

Toronto Maple Leafs centre and Franchise Player Auston Matthews has won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s MVP.

The NHL Awards were held last night, and the best player in Toronto Maple Leafs history, Auston Matthews, took home the night’s greatest honour.  There was really no surprise, as there was a better chance of Donald Trump showing up and trying to award it to himself than the NHL’s Writers screwing up the easiest lay-up of all-time.

It was the first Hart Trophy for a Leafs player since 1955 when Ted Kennedy won it.  Babe Pratt, who won the award in 1943, is the only other Leafs player to win it.

This is the first major award (Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe, Hart, Norris, Vezina) that a Leafs player has won since the NHL expanded beyond six teams.

Auston Matthews Wins the Hart Trophy

Matthews had 129 first place votes out of 195, which is probably closer than it deserved to be, considering that so many of Connor McDavid’s points were on the power-play.

As you can see, Matthews – who had 60 goals! – is absolutely incredible:

The craziest thing about Matthews is his defense.  Not only did he score the most  goals at 5v5 in the league (by a significant margin) but his defense was better than 93% of other players. When you consider how many  elite scorers are bad defensively due to sacrificing defense to try and score, it only makes Matthews’ overall game more impressive.

But Matthews was not the only impressive member of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the NHL awards.

Michael Bunting – who scored roughly the same amount of points as Connor McDavid did at even-strength – was voted 3rd place in the Calder Trophy race (Rookie of the Year).

I personally think that Bunting deserved the award, and that he was penalized for being too old and for benefiting from Auston Matthews.  To that I say: they made the rule and he qualifies, and if being with Matthews made everyone this good, the Leafs never would have needed to sign Bunting and give him a chance there.

Timothy Liljegren did receive a few fourth and fifth place votes, which was nice to see.  Frankly, he was one of the best team’s best defenseman, so I think he should have gotten more votes, and potentially might even have deserved the award himself.

Finally Mitch Marner (also worth of MVP votes himself, though he didn’t get any) was named the NHL’s best right-winger.  All in all, it was  a great night for the Leafs who would probably still be playing if the NHL employed competent referees in their opening round series vs Tampa.