Scott Stewart-USA TODAY Sports
This year’s NHL Awards are not in Las Vegas this year because of the lockout. That means we’ve been deprived of the red carpet arrivals, bad musical acts, possibly mediocre host and awesomely awkward acceptance speeches. But the Chicago Blackhawks weren’t deprived of nominations, and so far one nominee has come away with some hardware.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and no one expected Jonathan Toews to be the winner of the Selke Trophy for best defensive forward. Out of the three finalists – Toews, Patrice Bergeron and Pavel Datsyuk – it was widely thought that Bergeron would win it for the second time in two years. It was a close race, but Toews won by a mere 10 points ahead of Bergeron. That rather clashes with Bergeron’s superior faceoff percentage compared to Toews’.
As far as the other two nominees of tonight’s announced awards, they were both empty-handed. Patrick Kane came in second to Martin St. Louis for the Lady Byng Trophy, while Joel Quenneville came in second to Paul McLean for the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year. In hindsight, you could argue that it was only fair that McLean won, because he held his injured team together long enough to make it to the postseason.
The last award for which a Blackhawks player was nominated, the Calder Trophy, will be awarded tomorrow before Game 2. Brandon Saad is a finalist along with Jonathan Huberdeau and Brendan Gallagher. Kane was the last Blackhawks player to win the Calder.
