Bleacherreport
Dark-Horse Candidates for Every Major NHL Award In 2024-25
Z.Baker29 min ago
- Andrew Maclean /NHLI via Every year at the start of the NHL season we have some idea as to which players are going to compete for the league's major awards. Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov and Auston Matthews are going to compete for scoring titles and the MVP award. Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin and Connor Hellebuyck are going to be your Vezina Trophy favorites. Cale Makar, Adam Fox, Quinn Hughes and Miro Heiskanan are going to be the heavy favorites for the Norris Trophy. The No. 1 overall pick is going to be a Calder Trophy favorite. Several of those players have already won those awards. They might win them this season. But it is still possible for somebody under the radar to come out of nowhere and win one this season, and that is what we are going to look at today. We are going to take five of the top NHL awards and highlight one dark horse candidate that could win it that is sneaking under the radar. This is not a prediction that the players mentioned here are going to win the award. It is just simply one player that could win it that might not be getting any attention of preseason hype for it.
- Jamie Douglas/Icon Sportswire via This might be digging deep into the list of dark horse candidates, but Miller could potentially check a lot of boxes for MVP consideration. Playing for a good team? He might have that, assuming the Canucks repeat their 2023-24 performance - or at least come close to it - and make a return trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second year in a row. Big offensive production? He should definitely have that, especially after being one of the top offensive players in the league over the past three years. Playing on a playoff team gets you noticed. Scoring a lot of points gets you noticed. Having both of those things puts you on the MVP radar. Miller finished in 11th in the MVP voting a year ago, and could be in the running again this season. His Canucks career has been fascinating to watch unfold. When the Canucks traded a first-round pick for him it was largely panned because they did not seem to be a team close to contending. When he was signed to a long-term contract extension it was criticized as an overpay and bad contract for a one-dimensional player, while it was believed the Canucks would eventually need to deal him to get rid of an albatross contract. The reality is that he has been a great core player and could play his way into MVP consideration. Will he win? Probably not. But he is a good dark horse candidate if you were looking for one to bet on.
- Ashley Potts/NHLI via Georgiev is easily one of the most interesting starting goalies in the NHL this season. On one hand, he might be the biggest question mark on what is an otherwise very good Colorado Avalanche team. He is coming off a down year as the team's starter, and there is still some uncertainty as to how good of a goalie he actually is at this point. On the other hand, I do not think it is an outrageous statement to say he could find himself in the Vezina discussion at some point this season. You already know he is going to put himself in a position to win a lot of hockey games. The Avalanche will give him goal support, and they have an outstanding defense in front of him. As inconsistent as he has been over the past couple of years he has still led the league in wins in each of the past two seasons. The Vezina voters (the NHL GMs) pay attention to that. They just like people that win. If he can combine those win totals with an above average save percentage and get back into the .915 or .918 range he showed in his first full year with the Avalanche he would absolutely be a sleeper, under-the-radar contender for this award.
- Jeanine Leech/Icon Sportswire via The Calder Trophy race is likely to come down to No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini, Philadelphia Flyers phenom Matvei Michkov and perhaps Dallas Stars forward Logan Stankoven. But there is always somebody that comes out of nowhere and plays their way into the discussion, and Pittsburgh Penguins forward Rutger McGroarty might be the player this season. The Penguins acquired him in a prospect trade before the season after the Winnipeg Jets were unable to come to terms on a contract with him. McGroarty is an outstanding prospect - and clearly the best prospect in the Penguins organization right now - and might get an opportunity to play some meaningful minutes for a team that needs to get some young talent into the lineup. Following a standout career at the University of Michigan McGroarty looks like he is NHL ready and had a tremendous training camp and preseason for the Penguins. He might not open the season in Pittsburgh, but he will be there soon enough and could put up some points, especially if he gets a chance to play alongside one of their top centers like Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin for any stretch of time.
- Ben Ludeman/NHLI via The Norris Trophy is set to be dominated by the next wave of young star defensemen rolling into the NHL, and it kind of already is. Cale Makar, Adam Fox, Quinn Hughes and Miro Heiskanen are going to be the front-runners for this award for the foreseeable future, but there are still some older veteran players that can be involved in this. The New Jersey Devils might have one of them in Dougie Hamilton. It is kind of easy to forget about Hamilton because he has missed so much time since signing with the Devils, including almost all of the 2023-24 season. It is unfortunate for him on an individual level, but it is especially unfortunate for the Devils because he is a legitimate No. 1 defenseman. Well, he is back this season and as long as he stays healthy should still have some prime years ahead of him where he can be a top-tier defender. There is a lot to love about his game because he can do pretty much everything you want from a top-pairing defender. He controls the pace of the game and dominates possession, he is a better player in his own end than he gets credit for being, and he can score as well as any defender in the league. He has typically been an afterthought in Norris Trophy voting in his career despite being a wildly productive player. If the Devils bounce back, and he plays a role in it, he might finally get some serious attention this season.
- Christian Petersen/ The coach of the year award is a complicated one because it does not always reflect great coaching. A lot of times the coaches that win it, or at least finalists, are fired within a year or two. Well, I do not know if the Utah Hockey Club is going to get that sort of goaltending performance, but I am confident they are going to be a factor in the Western Conference playoff race and could potentially sneak in. They have a couple of emerging young stars at forward in Logan Cooley and Dylan Guethier to go with Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz and Lawson Crouse. They also made some significant moves to upgrade their defense by getting Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino. Those additions, combined with the emerging talent at forward, could put this team in the playoffs. If that happens, you can be sure Tourigny is going to get plenty of Jack Adams consideration. He might even win it.
Read the full article:https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10138287-dark-horse-candidates-for-every-major-nhl-award-in-2024-25
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