Last year we began a new annual article (what’s one more, really): Awards! Is there anything better than the NHL (Selke) awards? I mean, probably. But for Luke and I (not Shawn), this is our time to shine. Not only is this one of the best places to actually put our metrics to the test, it’s great content. The end-of-season NHL awards offer a very unique opportunity for fans, journalists, and statisticians alike to argue about things that really matter. Every sport gets to do this, and it’s important that we as hockey people do the same. Maybe more importantly: we as data and stats people should (and do) care about this even more because we know we’re right and everyone else is wrong. Or, at the very least, the people that bring up skater points when discussing the Selke are wrong. Everyone else is ok, but those people are wrong.
Before we get into the excitement of the playoffs and lose focus on individual regular season achievements, we thought it’d be fun to do this whole exercise once again. We have, admittedly, been quite lackluster with our quarterly social media Awards posts this season – a certain podcast co-host may have finally won in his quest to get us to stop talking about these trophies on our podcast. Either way, he can’t stop us now since he didn’t write any of this. Josh and Luke have done a great job deciding exactly who should win all of the major NHL awards based on the wonderful data and statistics and numbers available on Evolving Hockey dot com. What else do you need? Let’s get to it.
Process
This is the same system we’ve always used, which Luke explained a year ago quite well (basically the same follows). We use the average of our xGAR & GAR metrics for the Hart & Norris rankings and the average of the xGAR & GAR EVD components for the Selke rankings. The Calder is determined using a z-score transformation of average xGAR & GAR along with rookie goalie GAR (the goalie side of the xGAR model). The Vezina is a simple ranking of total goalie GAR for the given season (again, this is the goalie side of our xGAR model). Lady Byng is determined by the leaders in our penalty goals component for GAR/xGAR (the same “model” is used for both systems). It’s difficult to combine xGAR and GAR with objective “precision”. I’ve used a weighted average in the past, but I figured a simple average would be the least subjective. I normally present our picks in three tiers with a total of anywhere from 6-12 players (the Lady Byng is always extremely close so I only post 5 players) – we’ll be displaying those tiers for each award below. For most awards we’ve limited it to 8 players.
A few notes about the tables in this article:
- “Off” is EVO + PPO and “Def” is EVD + SHD
- “Take” & “Draw” are the penalty goals components of both the GAR & xGAR models
- The conditional formatting is scaled based on the quantile (0%/50%/100%) for each column relative to the respective population. For example, the EVO column for skaters in the Hart table below is shaded from dark orange (0%), to white (50%) to dark blue (100%) for all skaters. Skater awards are based on all skaters in the league, goalies the same.
A friendly reminder: we’re not attempting to “predict” who will win each award. The exercise here is to determine who, based on our data/models/method, is the most deserving of each award. I’ve tried to address the consensus picks when necessary below, but that’s not what we’re going for here. This is an Evolving Hockey article after all, and we like to look at numbers and make tables and lists. And then we get to write about them. It’s a lot of fun – you should try it! Let’s get to it.
Hart
Tiers:
- Connor McDavid
- Cole Caufield
- Nathan MacKinnon | Moritz Seider | Lane Huston | Zach Werenski | Nikita Kucherov | Quinn Hughes
For the better part of the last month, Cole Caufield has been our frontrunner for the Hart trophy. Connor McDavid, however, did the thing that the majority views as the “definition” of the Hart trophy and literally carried the Oilers into a playoff position. In this case, we also will define it as such. With three Hart trophies already, this is simultaneously boring and incredibly impressive. An apt description of McDavid perhaps? We were quite ready to award the 5’ 4” Caufield his first MVP and really get in with Canadien fans. However, it’s probably better that McDavid is here. Every time I’ve watched the Oilers this season, hell every time I’ve watched McDavid for the last decade, I’m amazed. With a potential fourth trophy, he’d tie Eddie Shore for third in total Hart trophies behind only Gretzky and Howe. He’s only 29 years old.
Possibly the most overlooked player in the general “consensus” is Cole Caufield. From everything we’ve seen, few are mentioning him at all let alone considering him as a finalist here. Even in Montreal there seems to be mostly annoying Suzuki chatter re: Selke favorite (trust me, we’ll get to that, and he’s actually been really good it doesn’t have to do with him). Caufield’s been a menace this year… in multiple ways. He’s making us acknowledge a player’s shooting ability before anything else. Through 80 games, Caufield currently sits 3rd since 2007 in all-situations xGAR shooting value (behind Stamkos’ infamous ’11-12 season and Draisaitl’s ’24-25 season). His goal totals “without” the assists seem to be giving people pause, but his on-ice results have been quite solid alongside these ridiculous shooting numbers. He’s top-5 among all Montreal skaters in every EV RAPM metric we have on the site, and none of his GAR or xGAR components are below replacement this year. Just throwing something out for the voters to consider.
Besides the two favorites, we have two well-known powerhouse forwards and four very strong defensemen in the tiers above. MacKinnon and Kucherov seem likely to compliment McDavid as the natural finalists, and the defensemen here will get some chatter below, so I think it’s time we talk about a Minnesota Wild player in our Hart section. Quinn Hughes, eh? He’s really good. Hughes brings up an interesting topic about traded players and how we should handle their impact on a new team while considering their performance with a prior team. Minnesota lacks very little in high-end talent, and the addition of Hughes has fully cemented them as a “contender”, at least relative to the Pacific. Quinn Hughes is 22nd in xGAR among defensemen in just his time with Minnesota. That’s 48 games. I’m just bringing this up for no reason, and I definitely haven’t started watching the Wild religiously over the last month. No sir. At the very least, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one defensemen gets close to the top-3 in voting.
Norris
Tiers:
- Moritz Seider | Lane Hutson
- Zach Werenski | Quinn Hughes
- Jake Sanderson | Evan Bouchard | Adam Fox | Matthew Schaefer | Rasmus Dahlin
Oh, what a shame. The Detroit Red Wings. The Yzerplan. The Failure. And yet, we have Moritz Seider. Can there really be failure if a team gets a player like Seider out of this ongoing debacle? Probably the most well-rounded defensemen in the game (or at the very least the most well-rounded defensive defensemen), it’s a dishonor that we as hockey fans don’t get to see him in the playoffs. The Red Wings now hold the title for “longest playoff drought” in the NHL, and given that they took it from the Sabres, that might be even more shameful. Moritz Seider is the epitome of what we here at Evolving Hockey hope hockey players look like: perfect (defensive-minded). After a statistically shaky start during his first two seasons, Seider now ranks second among defenseman in xEVD over the last four seasons (behind only Pelech). Almost all of that is due to his rookie and sophomore years weighing things down.
Over the last week, Lane Hutson has climbed heavily. While Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield have been lauded for their respective seasons, there hasn’t been the same chatter surrounding Lane Hutson. After his Calder-winning season last year, Hutson has actually doubled his total xGAR this season compared to last (11.9 to 22.2). While Seider might be our current definition of the “perfect hockey player”, Hutson has some of the most ridiculous numbers I’ve seen from a 2nd-year defenseman possibly ever (or at least since 2007). Hutson has been superb this year, and given the small decimal difference that our method has produced, another game might just push him over the limit if this came out on Friday. In essence, it’s fair to consider this a tie.
Zach Werenski is the consensus pick, and it sort of makes sense. With two back-to-back seasons of Norris-caliber performance after missing parts of multiple seasons due to injury all while playing for the same team, I get why it might be “his time”. The narrative drives everything with these awards, but in this case Werenski deserves quite a bit of consideration. Hell, the top-four in our ranking deserve recognition here, and this omits Evan Bouchard’s great season, which I’ll also omit since we’ve gotten sick of talking about how underrated he is. The Norris Trophy might just be the most interesting award of the season.
Vezina
Tiers:
- Logan Thompson
- Scott Wedgewood | Jeremy Swayman | Ilya Sorokin
- Igor Shesterkin | Jet Greaves | Andrei Vasilevskiy
The current favorites for the Vezina appear to be a mix of Vasilevskiy, Swayman, and Sorokin, but Logan Thompson has been incredible for the Washington Capitals (goaltending was clearly not their issue). Thompson has been one of the more under-appreciated goalies over the last several seasons (especially since Canada made some questionable decisions in the Olympics that I’m sure I should avoid mentioning). His GAR numbers have improved at an almost exponential rate since he entered the NHL in ‘21-22 with Vegas. His 14.1 SPAR this season is the 6th highest since he entered the NHL, and I’m still not entirely sure how the Capitals missed the playoffs with performance like this from their starter… Regardless, he’s our pick for Vezina.
Now, don’t get me wrong – Vasilevskiy, Swayman, and Sorokin are all completely deserving of this trophy. Especially Swayman. We had the Bruins at 16.3% to make the playoffs going into the season, and they inexplicably turned into a decent team while everyone including themselves thought they’d tank (Jeremy Swayman, known anti-tank commander). The Lightning, on the other hand, were our favorites to lead the Atlantic heading into the season, and Vasilevskiy’s performance this year helped to really solidify that projection… Oh, actually the Sabres now lead the Atlantic division? Let’s go. It’s a little surprising that the Avalanche goalies aren’t getting much consideration. Wedgewood’s been fantastic this year in the 44 games he’s played, and Blackwood has been quite solid in his 37 games. Goalie tandems really seemed to take off this year, and Colorado’s duo was the best; it seems we have another strange dilemma where neither goalie in a true tandem remove themselves from this discussion. Lastly, we need to talk about Jet Greaves. His 13.5 GAR in 11 games last season made us turn our heads (just like the models), but he followed that up with a stellar year this season. We should’ve never doubted the models.
Calder
Tiers:
- Matthew Schaefer
- Ivan Demidov | Justin Sourdif | Linus Karlsson | Arseny Gritsyuk
Possibly the most boring award race we’ve had in some time, the Calder has been Schaefer’s to lose since literally the first week. And guess what folks, he didn’t lose it. All but guaranteed at this point, it’s sort of been a bore. However, we need to acknowledge just how good Schaefer’s rookie season has been. Not only is he miles ahead of the next rookie here, he’ll finish 8th in Norris and 21st in our Hart rankings here. His 23.8 xGAR at the time of the publication is the most a rookie skater has posted since 2007 in a full season, ahead of Bobby Ryan’s 23.3 with Anaheim in ’08-09. Of note, Kirill Kaprizov’s ‘20-21 season and Jake Muzzin’s ’12-13 season actually prorate higher, but we tend to favor complete seasons for comparison. Regardless, Schaefer’s season is truly historic, which also means there’s been exactly zero discourse around whether he’ll take home the Calder. I’m kind of curious if he’ll be unanimous in first place votes.
Far more interesting, although obviously overshadowed, is the 2nd and 3rd place positions. In another year, Ivan Demidov could very well have won this award; his 12.7 xGAR would be the best from a rookie in three years. Somehow, Montreal has forced us to talk about their players a lot in this article so I feel like I have to limit praise here, but Jakub Dobes would actually be 4th in our Calder order if we included goalies in the chart above. Becket Sennecke seems to be the consensus skater to round out the top-3, but it wouldn’t be an Evolving Hockey article without a player a good portion of hockey fans possibly haven’t heard of (not us, we’ve definitely heard about someone named Justin Sourdif).
An extremely well-rounded depth player in his first year with the Capitals, Sourdif spent the majority of his time (244 minutes, so about 1/6th) with Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas, which is to say not a lot of time. He moved around the Caps lineup extensively and excelled in a depth defensive position – not something you see very often from a rookie. While the Capitals couldn’t quite secure a playoff spot even after they had publicly given up on the playoffs at the deadline, Sourdif deserves some serious recognition for a great season that not even we were aware of. Ok, fine, I saw his name in our tables but didn’t do the research until like a week ago (Billy Beane voice: I don’t watch the Capitals). None of this really matters because Schaefer might get every vote (even the 2nd and 3rd place ones too), but this season’s rookie class is particularly promising.
Selke
Tiers:
- Jordan Kyrou | Jack Drury
- Tom Wilson | Alexis Lafrenière | Luke Evangelista | Dylan Cozens | Danton Heinen | Roope Hintz
And here we are. The crown jewel. The crème de la crème. The Frank J. Selke Award. I have to say, more than any race in recent years, this season’s Selke “race” has frustrated me extensively. It’s been a rough few years given [points at everything around us], but nothing has irritated me in the pettiest of ways like the general consensus surrounding the Selke this season. I mean, it happens every year, but sometimes the “general consensus” actually lines up with reality (Bergeron, sometimes Barkov, Koivu … god damn it). This season, someone somewhere made the prophecy that it was the year of Nick Suzuki. I’m not entirely sure where that came from, but it’s now (becoming) reality. Don’t get me wrong, Suzuki has had a great defensive season and continues to rank among the best defensive forwards in the league (top 15 in xEVD over the last three seasons). It’s not that he’s bad defensively at all, it’s that the “reasons” a player deserves the Selke inevitably include some mention of their point totals. While sleuthing around various other articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to get a feel for our general consensus, about 90% of the time Suzuki’s points were brought up in combination with a “it’s his year” type sentiment. What are we doing here? I can’t describe to you how annoying this is, so I won’t.
For the fun part: what is Jordan Kyrou doing at the top of this list. I should acknowledge that, just like last year, we look exclusively at even-strength defense for our Selke rankings. Short-handed defense is heavily reliant on a team’s structure and deployed system while also assuming a given player has a choice of being on the penalty kill (just look at Chandler Stephenson’s numbers shorthanded). As far as even-strength defense goes, Kyrou led all forwards with at least 750 minutes in RAPM xGA/60 and ranked 8th with this same cutoff in RAPM CA/60. While Kyrou is going to finish well below his expected point totals given the last few seasons, he’s very quietly turned into an extremely responsible forward defensively. Is he deserving of the Selke this year? Absolutely. Will he get more than 10 votes? I don’t know – is anyone reading this?
Rounding out our top three are two very interesting players. As I discussed above in our Calder section, the Capitals found something special defensively with Tom Wilson and Justin Sourdif. Well-known for various other things not necessarily related to defense, Wilson may have overtaken Marcus Foligno as the most consistent defensive forward in the game (now 2nd in xGAR over the last three seasons). Finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively in xGAR and GAR among all Capitals skaters, it’s hard to understate how important he’s been for the team while moving around the lineup in Washington. And then we have another out of nowhere Colorado player in Jack Drury rounding out our top three. With consistent depth TOI and a revolving door of teammates, Drury’s found a place not unlike other unsung depth guys from years past (O’Connor, Lehkonen). I mean, if this was a normal year, Drury would be our Selke pick and people would think we were absolutely insane. Maybe I should just manually change the chart while Luke isn’t looking.
Lady Byng
Tiers:
- Zach Werenski | Philip Broberg | Jackson Lacombe | Jake Sanderson | Travis Sanheim | Filip Hronek | Matt Roy | Cam Fowler…
Ahh, lastly, the Lady Byng. Last year we wrote a decent amount about this award and how it’s normally given to the player that takes the least amount of penalties while playing significant time. Technically, the definition says the award is given to “the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.” … But it normally goes to the player that didn’t take any penalties (or I guess the player the PHWA thinks is a good player and/or is just a really nice guy). That’s fair.
Again, the above chart is sorted by the goal value added from not taking penalties in our GAR & xGAR metrics. Normally, we’d see Kopitar and Slavin in the mix, but neither are in our top 20 this year (I guess they were both feeling slightly more feisty). However, this being Kopitar’s last season, it really is time to acknowledge a true GOAT: Anže Kopitar is the all-time leader in goals added from not taking penalties in our GAR & xGAR models (since ‘07-08). His 44 TAKE GAR is 6 higher than the next player (Ryan O’Riley). Kopitar is also the all-time leader in games played since ‘07-08 (I just learned this), and his TAKE GAR is 30 higher than Alex Ovechkin who is the next highest player in total games played. Hats off to Anže Kopitar for a tremendous career! I can’t believe I’m going to watch the NHL in the future without him. What the f**k.