NHL Awards - Selke and Larionov Trophies

There have been some surprising nominees for the NHL Awards this year. It will be interesting to see who wins. I am usually pumped when award season rolls around, but lately they have begun to be more political than based of actual merit. A perfect example this year will be when Shea Weber gets the Norris when Nick Lidstrom is clearly better. But Weber is Canadian, and anytime a Canadian has a decent year they are automatically the front runner...Barret Jackman anyone?

I am going to go through all the awards and pick my winners, and who will probably win. I am also going to pick the player that corresponds for that award on the Canucks. Kind of like a one club NHL Awards if you will. First off, the Selke:

This might be the toughest one, and I am already eliminating one of the nominees. The three finalists are: Jonathan Toews, Pavel Datsyuk, and Ryan Kesler. Nothing against Toews, and this has nothing to do with my hatred of the Blackhawks (I am mature enough to recognize skill over personal opinion), but he is a distant third in this. This is pretty much Datsyuk's trophy to lose every year. He has been lock down, but in my opinion Kesler gets the edge this year. I know the voters love voting for the guy with the most goals, which defeats the purpose of this award, but Kesler was locked in this year. He won key defensive zone face-offs on the PK and kept that machine, lowest GAA (2.20) in the NHL this season, rolling.

Datsyuk is like the guy who is steady every year. He is always going to be a great defensive player, who stays out of the box, as he shuts down the opposing teams top line, but every few seasons another player comes along and has a stellar season. That season is this one, and that player is Kesler.

Surprisingly, Kesler is not my pick for the best defensive forward on the Canucks, which I am naming the Larionov Trophy in honor of Igor Larionov. That award goes to Manny Malhotra. This is not because of his injury, however, in some respects it is, because the true value of Malhotra's presence was seen. He was the engine that ran that line. Hansen and Torres fed off his energy and heart. I said it all season and it was true all season, that was the best thrid line in all of hockey, no doubt about it. 

The proof is in the third line since Malhotra went out. There have probably been about 12 different incarnations of it. Jannik Hansen has been the only one to continue along as well as he was before, and he has been shakey at times. Manny was the man all year on that team, but just didn't get enough goals to be considered as the best defensive forward...no you read that correctly.