Awards

It’s clear to any hockey fan that Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are the NHL’s poster boys. They are arguably the two best players in the NHL today.

The debate will continue on as to who is actually better of the two, but these two get all the media attention for being the best players in the game today.

Although I do not disagree that these players are certainly very talented and gifted in the sport of hockey, I do think there are plenty of players who do not get enough recognition because of these two.

I don’t know what kind of a guy Frank J. Selke was, but he must have been some kind of awful.

The National Hockey League has a thing about naming awards and trophies after people, not accomplishments.

Baseball, basketball and football all have Most Valuable Player Awards. The NHL has the Hart Trophy, to show you.

There’s not a piece of hardware that the NHL gives out that isn’t named after a person, which means you need a cheat sheet to keep track of who means what.

On Monday, the NHL announced the three finalists for the Mark Messier Leadership Award : Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo, Los Angeles forward Dustin Brown, and Washington forward Alexander Ovechkin. Luongo and Brown are both deserving nominees; Ovechkin makes a mockery of the core values of the Messier Leadership Award.

With just a little over two weeks left in the regular season, it seems like as good a time as any to give the league general managers, coaches and members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association some help with their end of season award selections. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like anyone I know will be going to the NHL Awards Show in Las Vegas now that news of the ticket prices have come out. Let’s take a look at who, in my opinion, are the likely candidates for the various trophies awarded to NHL players at the end of the season:

Let's face it: penning any article reviewing the top choices for this year's James Norris Memorial Trophy would not only be redundant but also a virtual waste of time, being that the conversation still starts (and ends) with Nicklas Lidstrom. For our purposes, let's pretend the soon-to-be seven-time winner turned into Wade Redden this year and the rest of the league has a chance.

So, without further ado, here are the NHL's best rearguards of '08-'09.

As the NHL regular season approaches its end, a lot of talk surfaces about who should be winning certain awards.

So let's jump right on in.

HART MEMORIAL TROPHY

(Most Valuable Player to His Team)

Possibly the most sought-after award in the entire league, many Hall of Fame players have won this trophy in the past. The 2008 winner was Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.