Canadian Press Looks at Early Favourites
As always, the Canadian Press loves to speculate and hand out accolades to the hockey players they think have reached a certain level of play as the season reaches its quarter mark. Looking at the potential winners for the NHL Awards at this point in the season may seem pointless in terms of who wins the actual award when the dust settles from the year in hockey, but it’s always fun to speculate as to who could pick up the trophy.
As always, I’ll add my own predictions to the mix for that extra bit of goodness!
Hart Trophy: As for the Hart Trophy, the Canadian Press is shining some light on a number of possible candidates. Sidney Crosby is obviously a favourite, as he’s off to a good start with 30 points thus far. Vincent Lecavalier, who was featured yesterday here, is also a rational choice for the Hart at this point. Other considerations include Toronto’s Mats Sundin (okay, so that’s my suggestion), Calgary’s Jarome Iginla, San Jose Sharks forward Joe Thornton (14th overall in points), and Henrik Zetterberg from the Red Wings. Absent from the Canadian Press list of potential candidates is Sundin, Ilya Kovalchuk (29 points in 20 games, leads the league in goals), and Rick Nash (15th overall in points).
Vezina Trophy: The Canadian Press likes Pascal Leclaire of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Henrik Lundqvist from the Rangers, Evgeni Nabokov from San Jose, Martin Gerber from the Sens, and of course Cam Ward of the Hurricanes. Absent from the list are the obvious potential candidates like Brodeur (who recently reached 500 career wins but isn’t having a very good year) and Roberto Luongo (who is just now coming into form in Vancouver). I wouldn’t be so hasty to leave those two goaltenders off of the candidates list at this point. Also worthy of potential candidacy at the moment is St. Louis Blues goalie Manny Legace. With a 2.22 GAA, 15 games played, .918 save percentage, and 9 wins, Legace is a big key to any success that the Blues have had thus far.
Norris Trophy: For defensemen, the Canadian Press once again stacks the deck. Chris Phillips from the Ottawa Senators is a leading candidate. Sergei Zubov out of Dallas, Nicklas Lidstrom from the Red Wings, Chris Pronger from the Ducks, Brian Rafalski from the Red Wings, and Andrei Markov from the Montreal Canadiens are all included by the Canadian Press as potential Norris winners. At this point, I would also add Filip Kuba from the Tampa Bay Lightning, whose 8 points in 20 games and +14 rating is impressive. Other early candidates for the Norris include Tampa’s Paul Ranger and New Jersey’s Karel Rachunek.
Calder Trophy: Finally, we’ll take a look at the Calder Trophy. According to the Canadian Press, early selections for the Calder will likely wear a Chicago Blackhawks sweater. Patrick Kane and Jonathon Toews are both heavy favourites for the rookie award. Also in the mix are two boys from the Oilers, Sam Gagner and Andrew Cogliano, and Carey Price of the Habs. Tobias Enstrom from the Thrashers, Martin Hanzal from Phoenix, Devin Setoguchi out of San Jose, and David Perron from the Blues are all also mentioned by the Canadian Press as potential candidates for the Calder. To that list, I would also mention Nicklas Backstrom from the Washington Capitals (7th in rookie scoring) and Peter Mueller out of Phoenix.
