Thursday, April 22, 2004

The envelope please

With the first round of the playoffs out of the way, the NHL has taken advantage of the one day lull in the action, to announce its season ending award nominations.

Leading the way as the nominees for the Most Valuable Player are Jarome Iginla from Calgary, Martin St. Louis out of Tampa Bay and New Jersey Goaltender Martin Brodeur. One of whom will carry off the Hart trophy in less than six weeks.

Brodeur also finds his name put forward in nomination for the Vezina trophy, the second year he has been nominated in both categories. His challengers for the Vezina include; Roberto Luongo of Florida and Miikka Kiprusoff of Calgary.

The Calder trophy nominees for Rookie of the year go to, Andrew Raycroft of Boston, Michael Ryder of Montreal and Trent Hunter of the Islanders.

As they prepare to hand out the Norris trophy, consideration goes to Zdeno Chara of the Senators, Chris Pronger of the Blues and Scott Niedermayer of the Devils.

The Frank Selke trophy nominees for the best defensive forward are: New Jersey’s John Madden, Detroit’s Kris Draper and San Jose’s Alyn McAuley.

The Jack Murphy trophy for the coach of the year will be claimed by either, Tampa Bay’s John Tortorella, Calgary’s Darryl Sutter or San Jose’s Ron Wilson.

The envelopes will be handed out and the winners announced on June 10th in Toronto. An event expected to be televised by the CBC.

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