By Joseph Durie
It is time to give out some mid season awards for the 2009-10 NHL season.
First up is the Calder Trophy which is awarded to the best first year player in the NHL and it is hard to go past John Tavares of the New York Islanders.
The number one pick in the 2009 draft Tavares leads all first year players in goals and points and keeping the surprising Islanders in touch of the playoffs.
Mike Richards the captain of the Philadelphia Flyers takes out the Selke Trophy which goes to the best defensive forward. Richards who lost out to Pavel Datsyuk for this last season, is the biggest two-threat in the game.
Another runner-up from last year - Mike Green of the Washington Capitals takes the Norris Trophy for the best defensemen after coming second to Zdeno Chara last year. Green leads all defensemen in scoring even after a terrible start to the season.
The Vezina Trophy for the league best goalie goes to Buffalo’s Ryan Miller, who leads the league in save-percentage and in second in goals-against-average and third in wins. He is also in-line to lead Team USA at the 2010 Olympics.
The Art Ross Trophy for most points goes to Joe Thornton for the second time in 4 years, who has 51 points at the Christmas break and is on pace for over 120 points.
The Hart for the league’s most valuable player goes for the 3rd season in a row to Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin is clearly the most dominate player in the game, who even after missing 7 games which various injuries and suspension is still only 2 goals off the league lead of 26. Before he injured his knee in a incident which he was also suspended 2 games, Ovechkin was on pace to score over 60 goals for the 2nd time in 3 years.
The game of the week was a feature matchup between two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference the New Jersey Devils against the Stanley Cup champ Pittsburgh Penguins.
The end result was just a side bar and the Devils easily out played the Penguins winning 4-0. Martin Broduer made 35 saves to record his NHL record break 104 career shut out.
Broduer broke Terry Sawchuck’s 40-year-old record to help solidify his place as one of the best goal tender in the history of the game, Broduer already holds the all-time wins record.
3 News