The Bolts
Yesterday was a big day in Tampa Bay Lightning franchise history. While the playoffs didn’t go the way anyone wanted, two players received recognition for their outstanding regular seasons.
Andrei Vasilevskiy won the first Vezina trophy for the franchise in a landslide over former Lightning goalie Ben Bishop and Robin Lehner.
Vasilevskiy finished the season with a 39-10-4 record in 53 games played. He had a .925 SV%, 2.40 GAA, and six shutouts. He also had a 26.40 GSAA, the best of his career. Vasilevskiy added three assists to set a new career high. He led the NHL in wins for the second season in a row. He finished 6th in save percentage and 9th in goals against average. He also finished 4th in shutouts. Vasilevskiy finished 2nd in Goals Saved Above Average.
Nikita Kucherov doubled up winning both the Ted Lindsay Award as the Most Outstanding Player as voted by his peers as well as the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player. He was the clear favorite for the Hart and like Vasilevskiy, won it in a landslide.
The voting for the Hart Trophy though was not particularly close with Kucherov winning by a large margin. He garnered 1,677 points to Crosby’s 739 and McDavid’s 465. He received 164 first place votes, three seconds, two thirds, and two fourths. Croby received three first place votes, McDavid one, Johnny Gaudreau two, and Nathan MacKinnon one. Kucherov got 98.07% of the vote, which is the most since Evgeni Malkin won in 2011-12 with 98.86% of the vote. It is the second highest vote percentage since Mario Lemieux won with 99.2% of the vote in 1992-93.
The Lightning had two other awards nominees but Barry Trotz beat out Jon Cooper for the Jack Adams award in a close race and Victor Hedman finished third in Norris Trophy as Mark Giordano ran away with the award.
Anthony Cirelli got some Calder Trophy votes and while he didn’t win, he did get named to the All-Rookie team.
The NHL’s All-Rookie team as voted on by members of the PHWA: pic.twitter.com/f5Unv0uuxh
— PHWA (@ThePHWA) June 20, 2019
The Prospects
The Lightning announced the signing of Daniel Walcott to a one year two way contract. Wally is one of the most popular players in Syracuse and if he’s back to being healthy, could be an option to be a captain or alternate captain this season.
He’s back. 👊
The @TBLightning have re-signed @WallyD19 to a one-year, two-way deal.
📝: https://t.co/LZ8S6wEwng pic.twitter.com/jj4FDL7kYE
— Syracuse Crunch (@SyracuseCrunch) June 19, 2019
The Game
After a big day of trades and signings on Tuesday, things were relatively quiet yesterday leading up to the awards ceremony. The Senators made a minor move in net.
News Release: #Sens sign goaltender Marcus Hogberg to a two-year contract extension: https://t.co/XJgmXWfUFo
Communiqué : Les Sénateurs accordent une prolongation de contrat de deux ans au gardien de but Marcus Hogberg : https://t.co/aPKDa9L9cX pic.twitter.com/X00uTN7fTS
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) June 19, 2019
Mikhail Grabovski announced his retirement.
I want to officially announce that it is my last day as a hockey player, I’m officially retired. https://t.co/UqCybc2qS2
— Mikhail Grabovski (@OfficialGrabo) June 19, 2019
The Ducks announced that they are buying out the remainder of Corey Perry’s deal. The veteran will become an intriguing option for teams looking to add short term forward depth in free agency. For the Ducks, the move frees up a roster spot and gives them more cap flexibility.
The Ducks will get an instant $6 million of cap relief, which gives the Ducks a comfortable $17.6 million cushion when factoring in the likely cap increase to $82 million. However, those savings drop to just $2 million in 2020-20201, with the Ducks incurring a $2 million cap hit for an additional two years beyond his current deal which would run until 2022-2023.
And finally, here’s a quick rundown of the awards that didn’t involve the Lightning:
Elias Petterson won the Calder Trophy
Pettersson racked up 151 first place votes for the Calder, which was significantly more than second place finisher Jordan Binnington. The St. Louis Blues goaltender received 18 first place votes, while fellow finalist Rasmus Dahlin of the Buffalo Sabres received one. That’s the way it should have been.
Aleksander Barkov won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy (and for some reason burned his own fans?)
Christ, Barkov. pic.twitter.com/Fk5YdTLWCj
— Mike Pfeil (@mikeFAIL) June 20, 2019
Ryan O’Reilly won the Selke Award
“This week has been a lot.”
Ryan O’Reilly speaks truth with that statement. A week ago, he won the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP, and the Stanley Cup. This weekend, he was chugging Guinness and Bud Light at the championship parade in downtown St. Louis. Tonight, after a second place finish in Lady Byng voting, the Blues forward was awarded the Frank J. Selke trophy by a decent margin.
