Deadspin presents the Two-Thirds Through the Season NHL Awards

After working up a third of a season award post just so my editor would have something to publish during the Holidays, it only seems right that we do an equally meaningless one with some teams having cracked 60 games played. No, 82 doesn’t divide evenly by three, and there really isn’t a distinctive two-thirds point of the NHL season. But there isn’t a quarter-mark or quarter-pole either (they’re different!) so we’re just going to roll amongst the ambiguity and declare who’s leading various award races with some 20-25 games to go. It’s how we roll.

Let’s kick this pig.

This isn’t hard if you subscribe to the theory that the MVP award should really just be a “Player Of The Year” award. Which it should be and often is. If you’re one of those who gets into the weeds of which player means more to their team than the next guy, leave the rest of us who deal in logic alone. The dude is producing maybe the greatest goal-scoring season in the league’s history when adjusted for environment, and will probably crack 70 goals. This isn’t hard.

Other finalists: Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon

Oh, way to go genius, taking the top two scorers in the league! Yep, but sometimes it’s that easy. Kucherov has kept a pretty limited Lightning squad in the playoff picture as they wheeze through the last days for their window. MacKinnon dominates every shift he’s on the ice and has to do the work of two lines because the Avs just forgot to acquire a No. 2 center for this season. Bite me.

Believe me, I looked for any and all reasons to send Vancouver fans into yet another tizzy, which is the very definition of shooting fish in a barrel and yet, oh, so fun (a pastime of mine for going on 16 years now). But it’s really hard to get past Hughes. Not only does he lead all d-men in scoring, but he’s also become something of a shutdown corner on the other end of the ice as teams aren’t even bothering to try to enter the Canucks zone on his side.

If there’s a knock on Hughes it’s that his possession metrics aren’t that glittering. But with a push he might get more than 100 points from the blue line. It’s a solid case.

Other finalists: Cale Makar, Aaron Ekblad

Makar will be on this list until he decides to retire and they rename the award after him. Ekblad is the outside-the-box-to-prove-how-clever-I-am choice, even though he missed the start of the season. While his point total isn’t near enough to get him any consideration, he pushes the play for the best team in the league right now while starting a majority of his shifts outside the offensive zone. There is no more valuable skill in hockey than a d-man who can flip the play in favor of his team, and Ekblad does it better than anyone.

Who cares if he missed a quarter of the season after running jaw-first into Brendan Smith? He’s the only rookie anyone can pick out of a lineup, puts up some kind of a highlight every night, and still leads all rookies in scoring. Imagine what he can do when he can play with actual NHL top-six talent? Also, there are few things better than watching any type of Minnesota fan piss down their leg over some perceived slight, so we can get that here.

Other finalists: Luke Hughes, Brock Faber

There will come a year when multiple Hughes brothers win these awards, which is terrifying. Luke has become one of the league’s niftiest puck-movers and was anchoring what had been one of the league’s better power plays until everything in Newark got goalie’d and Lindy Ruff’d. Apparently, Faber plays for the Wild, and the 12 people who watch them instead of the Gophers say he’s pretty good. But you’ll never know it as Faber spends his entire career floating around the wild-card spots for a team no one knows exists.

Hellebuyck is first in save percentage, second in goals saved above expected, second in goals saved above expected per game, and seventh in high-danger save percentage. The Jets may be pretty good in front of him, but they give him an awful lot of work to do and they’re still favorites to win the division.

Other finalists: Thatcher Demko, Jacob Markstrom

Demko’s numbers are pretty much like Hellebuyck’s, except a tick worse. You’re already getting a Norris out of this, Canucks fans, so take your white towel and shove it. Markstrom has been performing miracles for a Flames team that is an utter mess in front of him, which is why teams have been calling to take on his pretty hefty contract at the deadline.

No one who votes for this award has any idea what it should mean. Which is why they always pick the center with a lot of points who wins faceoffs. Now that Patrice Bergeron is gone they’ll probably just hand it to Anze Kopitar for lack of any better idea and indifference to actually doing any research. So we’ll do our best. Any Hurricane on these stats gets the normal Carolina inflation due to the way they play, so up next on the list is Craig Smith, who has one of the lowest xGA/60 in the league while starting just a third of his shifts in the offensive zone. He’s actually playing a lot of defense, and doing it well. He also is top-20 in relative xGA/60, so he’s not really benefiting from a team-wide defensive shape. If the award is about which forward is helping his team most prevent goals, that’s Smith.

Other finalists: Jordan, Martinook, Hudson Fasching

We had to have one Cane on here, so we’ll go with Martinook over bigot Jordan Staal. Fasching has all the same claims as Smith, but just a little worse and we’re tired and want to go home.