A Way Too Early Look At Toronto Maple Leafs Contending For NHL Awards

Art Ross - Auston Matthews

The Art Ross is the most coveted regular season NHL award a player can win; it is awarded to the player who leads the NHL in total points at the end of the season.

Since 2017, the Art Ross has stayed in Edmonton or Tampa Bay, with Connor McDavid winning the award five times, Leon Draistaitl once, and Nikita Kucherov winning it twice.

While Matthews is the odds-on favourite to take home the Rocket Richard, he does not play with enough other goal-scoring talent to pad his assist numbers like Connor McDavid can play with Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman or like Nathan Mackinnon with Mikko Rantanen.

I only see Matthews being in the race for this award if Mitch Marner turns into a 50-goal scorer, which is an unreasonable expectation, or if the Maple Leafs have the best or close to the best powerplay in the NHL.

Frank J. Selke - Auston Matthews / Mitch Marner

The Selke could be an exciting award to follow this year. Aleksander Barkov is the heavy betting favourite, with oddsmakers giving him the best odds of winning the award.

Barkov deserves to be the favourite here; he is the current holder of the trophy and just shut down Connor McDavid in the three most important games of the Stanley Cup finals, games one, six and seven.

However, the Panthers blueline could be slightly worse this year, given they lost Brandon Montour to the Seattle Kraken and Oliver Ekmon-Larsson to the Maple Leafs.

This could leave the door open for someone to steal the Selke from under Barkov's nose.

If the door is open for someone to steal this award, Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner could be the ones to do it. Last year, Matthews finished as the runner-up to Barkov for this award, and in 2023, Marner was the runner-up to Patrice Bergeron.

Matthews and Marner are two of the best defensive forwards in the NHL, and they typically play on the same line together. If Barkov has an off year, I see one of these two guys walking away with the trophy.

If Barkov has another year like he did this past season, Matthews and Marner will likely get each other's votes and have a tough time getting enough votes to displace Barkov as the best defensive forward.