The 2014 NHL Award show in Las Vegas was last night, in case you missed it. You might have. No Dallas Stars were expected to win anything, and they didn’t. So we didn’t mention it ahead of time.
Jamie Benn was placed on the NHL’s first all-star team, meaning that the professional hockey writer’s association basically voted him the game’s best left wing last season, so that was pretty cool.
There were Dallas Stars all over the ballots, however, as the voting revealed throughout the night, and the information tells a story about where the team is head, and also what it still needs.
General Manager of the Year
1. Bob Murray, ANA 66 (9-6-3)
2. Marc Bergevin, MTL 49 (7-4-2)
3. Dean Lombardi, LA 33 (3-4-6)
4. Stan Bowman, CHI 29 (3-4-2)
5. Jim Nill, DAL 27 (4-0-7)
Jim Nill received four first-place votes and finished fifth overall, and that says a lot about what we already know. The Stars are headed in the right direction in this area.
“Voting for this award was conducted among the 30 Club General Managers and a panel of NHL executives, print and broadcast media at the conclusion of the regular season.”
Norris Trophy
1. Duncan Keith, CHI 1033 (68-35-17-7-2)
2. Zdeno Chara, BOS 667 (21-39-22-19-17)
3. Shea Weber, NSH 638 (26-23-29-19-15)
4. Ryan Suter, MIN 351 (9-12-20-22-11)
5. Alex Pietrangelo, STL 304 (3-13-18-25-18)
6. Drew Doughty, LA 284 (8-6-17-18-23)
7. Erik Karlsson, OTT 70 (0-5-3-4-8)
8. Ryan McDonagh, NYR 53 (0-1-4-5-11)
9. Victor Hedman, TB 42 (1-1-0-5-10)
10. Mark Giordano, CGY 36 (1-0-2-3-7)
11. Matt Niskanen, PIT 36 (0-1-2-5-4)
This is the one you look at and go “Yeah, we uh, we need someone that’s at least making the list here.” It’s no secret. We can’t stop talking about it. It’s representation here is pretty stark. No Dallas Stars even garnered a stray fifth place vote somewhere.
Matt Niskanen got a second place vote. So that’s… neat. I guess.
Hart Trophy- NHL MVP
1. Sidney Crosby, PIT 1341 (128-8-1-0-0)
2. Ryan Getzlaf, ANA 877 (5-96-28-5-0)
3. Claude Giroux, PHI 435 (2-15-42-27-19)
4. Semyon Varlamov, COL 256 (1-8-23-22-9)
5. Patrice Bergeron, BOS 137 (0-4-9-17-13)
6. Tyler Seguin, DAL 84 (0-1-6-12-11)
7. Joe Pavelski, SJ 71 (0-0-3-11-23)
8. Anze Kopitar, LA 58 (0-0-4-9-11)
9. Jonathan Toews, CHI 53 (0-2-4-4-7)
10. Ben Bishop, TB 52 (0-0-5-6-9)
11. Tuukka Rask, BOS 35 (0-1-2-5-3)
12. Jamie Benn, DAL 35 (0-1-2-4-6)
Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin both make appearance here, and rightfully so. They were everything to this team, and the PHWA acknowledges it in part here. If the team around them gets better their clout with the voters will rise in this category as their place in the standings does likewise.
Jack Adams- Coach of the year
1. Patrick Roy, COL 399 (68-19-2)
2. Mike Babcock, DET 163 (11-31-15)
3. Jon Cooper, TB 136 (5-29-24)
4. Claude Julien, BOS 68 (6-8-14)
5. Bruce Boudreau, ANA 24 (1-4-7)
6. Craig Berube, PHI 23 (1-4-6)
7. Ken Hitchcock, STL 14 (2-0-4)
8. Todd Richards, CBJ 6 (0-0-6)
9. Joel Quenneville, CHI 5 (1-0-0)
10. Lindy Ruff, DAL 5 (0-0-5)
Patrick Roy was the no-brainer here, but isn’t at least a little bit surprising that Lindy Ruff doesn’t get just a smidge more consideration?
Lady Byng
1. Ryan O’Reilly, COL 1181 (110-5-8-1-3)
2. Martin St. Louis, NYR 358 (4-20-27-11-10)
3. Patrick Marleau, SJ 323 (3-15-23-21-10)
4. Tyler Seguin, DAL 289 (2-23-15-7-12)
That Tyler Seguin gets this much consideration after his reputation was assaulted on his way out of Boston is something. A farce of a 10-minute misconduct added to his PIM total late in the season may have cost him- Or… you know, looking at how O’Reilly ray away with it- Probably not.
Vezina Tropy
1. Tuukka Rask, BOS 103 (16-6-5)
2. Semyon Varlamov, COL 90 (9-13-6)
3. Ben Bishop, TB 32 (1-6-9)
4. Carey Price, MTL 26 (2-3-7)
5. Jonathan Quick, LA 9 (1-1-1)
6. Henrik Lundqvist, NYR 5 (1-0-0)
7. Steve Mason, PHI 3 (0-1-0)
8. Sergei Bobrovsky, CBJ 1 (0-0-1)
Kari Lehtonen, DAL 1 (0-0-1)
Kari Lehtonen actually got a third place vote here, and it wasn’t even Mike Heika’s. Does this indicate that the Stars need a goalie that gets on this list? Or simply that he might get on it more prominently some day if the defense improves and the team earns more wins?
Calder Trophy
1. Nathan MacKinnon, COL 1347 (130-6-1-0-0)
2. Ondrej Palat, TB 791 (5-78-29-15-5)
3. Tyler Johnson, TB 352 (0-13-29-30-26)
4. Torey Krug, BOS 287 (1-9-23-25-24)
5. Olli Maatta, PIT 225 (0-11-18-16-10)
6. Jacob Trouba, WPG 213 (1-11-17-9-14)
7. Hampus Lindholm, ANA 208 (0-7-15-22-18)
8. Sean Monahan, CGY 38 (0-2-2-3-5)
9. Frederik Andersen, ANA 25 (0-0-0-4-13)
10. Chris Kreider, NYR 20 (0-0-1-3-6)
11. Seth Jones, NSH 15 (0-0-0-4-3)
12. Valeri Nichushkin, DAL 14 (0-0-0-3-5)
There was so much chatter surrounding young Val and the Calder as the preseason unfolded last year, but alas, a few fourth and fifth place votes were all it amounted to as a pretty salty rookie class, many of them much older than Nichushkin, bullied its way into the league. Just as interesting- Tomas Hertl was even lower on this list, finishing 14th. His injury took him out halfway through the season but he was spectacular enough in the early going to warrant more consideration than that, no?
Selke Trophy
1. Patrice Bergeron, BOS 1,283 (112-21-2-2-0)
2. Anze Kopitar, LA 840 (20-66-26-15-3)
3. Jonathan Toews, CHI 624 (2-36-57-20-7)
4. David Backes, STL 415 (3-5-31-59-18)
5. Marian Hossa, CHI 66 (0-5-2-2-15)
6. Ryan O’Reilly, COL 58 (0-0-3-10-13)
7. Tomas Plekanec, MTL 45 (0-0-4-5-10)
8. Joe Pavelski, SJ 32 (0-0-2-3-13)
9. Sean Couturier, PHI 30 (0-1-2-1-10)
10. Ryan Getzlaf, ANA 22 (0-1-1-2-4)
11. Ondrej Palat, TB 19 (0-0-1-3-5)
12. David Krejci, BOS 16 (0-0-2-1-3)
13. Pavel Datsyuk, DET 11 (0-1-0-1-1)
14. Antoine Vermette, PHX 11 (0-0-0-3-2)
15. Alex Steen, STL 9 (0-0-1-1-1)
16. Paul Stastny, COL 8 (0-1-0-0-1)
17. Frans Nielsen, NYI 8 (0-0-1-1-0)
18. Sidney Crosby, PIT 8 (0-0-0-2-2)
19. Tyler Johnson, TB 6 (0-0-1-0-1)
20. Brandon Dubinsky, CBJ 6 (0-0-0-2-0)
Benn and Seguin are good in their own end, but not so in the other. Benn is better than he’s given credit for. Can the Stars find a piece that fits into the bottom half of this discussion? Maybe a guy on the list already… 😉
Any Stars you feel should have been given more consideration in any of these categories?