2009 NHL AWARDS PREDICTIONS

This year's NHL awards will be handed out on June 18th and here's my predictions:


Lady Byng Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the NHL player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.

Nominees
Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings
Zach Parise, New Jersey Devils
Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay Lightning

My pick is Datsyuk. He's also nominated for Hart and has won the Lady Byng every year for the past three years. St. Louis is deserving of the award too though since he had only 15 penalty minutes this season.


Frank J. Selke Trophy
Awarded to the NHL forward who demonstrates the most skill in the defensive component of the game.

Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings
Ryan Kesler, Vancouver Canucks
Mike Richards, Philadelphia Flyers

I'm picking Datsyuk here too. He's also nominated for Hart and Lady Byng, he won it last year and he has best plus/minus of the nominees.


Calder Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the NHL.

Nominees
Steve Mason, Columbus Blue Jackets
Bobby Ryan, Anaheim Ducks
Kris Versteeg, Chicago Blackhawks

It's going to be Mason. He was one of the NHL's best goalies last season and he's also nominated for the Vezina trophy.


Norris Momorial Trophy
Awarded to the NHL defenseman who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position

Nominees
Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins
Mike Green, Washington Capitals
Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit Red Wings

This may be the hardest trophy to predict the winner this season. Lidstrom has won the last three and six in total. Green is the first defenseman since Leetch in 1996 to achieve more than a point-per-game. Leetch lost the Norris to Chelios that season. I'm picking Lidstrom, but really any of these three guys could take it.


Vezina Trophy
Awarded to the NHL goaltender adjudged to be the best at this position.

Nominees
Nicklas Backstrom, Minnesota Wild
Steve Mason, Columbus Blue Jackets
Tim Thomas, Boston Bruins

This is the first Vezina nomination for all three nominees. I'm picking Thomas because his stats are the best.


Hart Memorial Trophy
Awarded to the NHL player adjudged the most valuable to his team.

Nominees
Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit Red Wings
Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins
Alexander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals

All the nominees are Russian. Ovechkin won this season's Maurice Richard Trophy. Malkin won this season's Art Ross. Datsyuk is nominated for both the Selke and the Lady Byng. Ovechkin won it last year and I think he'll win it again.

REMATCH!

The Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins will be pit against each other in the Stanley Cup Finals in a rematch of last year's final. The last time the finals were a rematch was 25 years ago.

Last season Detroit was victorious in capturing the Stanley Cup, but the young Pens have learned a lot since then and perhaps this season the Cup will be Pittsburgh bound.

Marian Hossa and Ty Conklin will be returning to the Stanley Cup finals, but this time with the Detroit Red Wings instead of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their are also a few new faces in this series. Here's a list of who's come, who's gone and who's injured:


Pittsburgh Penguins

Acquired:
Craig Adams
Phillipe Boucher
Matt Cooke
Ruslan Fedotenko
Mathieu Garon
Bill Guerin
Chris Kunitz
Miroslav Satan
Mike Zigomanis

Lost:
Ty Conklin
Adam Hall
Marian Hossa
George Laraque
Ryan Malone
Gary Roberts
Jarkko Ruutu
Darryl Sydor
Ryan Whitney

Injured:
Mike Zigomanis


Detroit Red Wings

Acquired:
Ty Conklin
Marian Hossa

Lost:
Dallas Drake
Mark Hartigan
Dominik Hasek

Injured:
Jonathon Ericsson
Nicklas Lidstrom
Pavel Datsyuk
Kris Draper
Andreas Lilja
Tomas Kopecky


At the beginning of the season and at the beginning of the playoffs I chose Detroit as my favourite to win the Cup, but with all their recent injuries and the improved play of Evgeni Malkin in the playoffs this year I'm going to have to predict that the Pittsburgh Penguins will win the Stanley Cup this season.

CONFERENCE FINALS PREDICTIONS

I'm predicting that this season's Stanley Cup Final will be a rematch of last season with the Detroit Red Wings facing the Pittsburgh Penguins.


Detroit Red Wings vs. Chicago Blackhawks

The Red Wings are the defending Stanley Cup Champions, so it's hard to bet against them. Chicago is still a young team without much playoff experience. The Hawks have had a great season considering they haven't made the playoffs for years and this experience will help them be even better in next year's playoffs.


Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Carolina Hurricane

Pittsburgh is probably the most Cup-hungry team in the playoffs. After losing in the Stanley Cup finals last season the team displayed severe disappointment but kept a positive attitude that they would return to the finals again. One great story in this match-up will be brothers Jordan and Eric Staal playing against each other in the series. They'll be seeing a lot of ice-time against each other as Jordan centers the Pens checking line and is normally matched-up against the opposing team's top line, which Eric will be centering. Another interesting fact is that Cam Ward has never lost an NHL playoff series. He's now won 6 series in a row in his NHL career and won the Conn Smythe as Playoff MVP as well as the Stanley Cup in 2006.

WILL THE COYOTES RETURN TO CANADA?

The third time could be the charm as the Phoenix Coyotes become the third NHL team Blackberry founder and Kitchener native Jim Balsille has tried to purchase and relocate to Southern Ontario.

Over the last couple years, Balsille has also tried to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators without success. He even began selling tickets at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton for the Predators franchise in an effort to show the interest of the fans in what he calls "one of the best un-served hockey markets in the world."

This time, Balsille made an offer of $212.5 million for the Coyotes hours after the team declared bankcruptcy. The offer consists of a conditional clause stating the team must be relocated to southern Ontario.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman isn't going to like this. Despite the obvious profit to be made by moving a money losing franchise closer to the most profittable hockey market (Toronto), Bettman has no interest in relocating any NHL team. Bettman's philosophy has always been to make the NHL a sport watched across North American by speading the team's across North America. He definately doesn't want any teams from the Western Conference moving farther East because the magority of NHL teams are in the North Eastern sector of North America. He wants to expand the NHL West for the sake of creating new NHL markets and fans that'll spend their money on merchandise, tickets and cable deals. If the NHL were to expand, Bettman would rather create franchises in Las Vegas and Kansas City than Southern Ontario.

After Toronto, the GTA and Ottawa, the next most populated cities in Ontario are Hamilton, London, Windsor and Kitchener. Hamilton is only 104 km from Buffalo and Windsor in only 2.8 km from Detroit which will make it difficult for either city to get an NHL team. If Balsille lands a team in Southern Ontario, the team may land in his hometown of Kitchener.

Balsillie's new strategy for depicting the interest for another team in Southern Ontario in his new website http://makeitseven.ca. On the site, Canadian fans can leave their email address and their postal code, read the full release statement and sign up for their online community.

SAD CENTENIAL SEASON FOR THE CANADIENS CONTINUES

The Montreal Canadiens finished at the top of the Eastern Conference last season. This season, the team's centennial, they intended to celebrate it by winning the Stanley Cup.

During the off-season, General Manager Bob Gainey figured that picking up forwards Alex Tanguay and Robert Lang was enough to take them the extra step, though they lost Mark Streit, who was their biggest power-play threat. Gainey was also counting on sophomore goaltender Carey Price to improve on last season's excellence.

Maybe things didn't start off so bad. Alexei Kovalev, Mike Komisarek, Andrei Markov and Carey Price were all voted onto the Eastern Conference All-Stars. They did have the advantage though since the NHL All-Star game was held in Montreal.

Things got bad. The team started to slide. Kovalev sat out a couple games. Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn were involved with the mob. Price was cursed with the sophomore jinx. They suffered a lot of injuries as Tanguay and Lang saw only 50 games each. Coach Guy Carbonneau was fired. The team continued to lose when Gainey took over as coach. The team barely held on to the last playoff spot only to get swept by the Boston Bruins in the first round. During Boston's final blow-out, the "fans" booed Price so hard that he made the same gesture that Patrick Roy made during Roy's final game in Montreal.

Rumours have started that the team is going to be sold and one of the rumoured interested parties is none other than French-Canadian singing legend Celine Dion.

The team needs a new coach and there are rumours that Bob Gainey may not be back next season as GM.

Many of the teams top players are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents in July including Kovalev, Tanguay, Lang, Saku Koivu, Komisarek, Matthieu Schneider, Patrice Brisebois, Tom Kostopoulos, Francis Bouillon and Mathieu Dandenault.

The Montreal Canadiens are a mess from their ownership to their management to their coaching staff and their roster. There's going to be a lot of changes this off-season.

SECOND ROUND PICKS

In the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I'm picking...

Detroit Red Wings over Anaheim Ducks

Detroit/Anaheim is going to be a tough series. Anaheim had a strong finish to the season and took out the President's Trophy winning San Jose Sharks. The Ducks did win the Cup just two seasons ago as well. Anaheim has a great team, but I don't think they can stand up to the power-house that is the Stanley Cup defending Detroit Red Wings.


Vancouver Canucks over Chicago Blackhawks

I'd expect another quick victory by the Canucks who swept the St. Louis Blues and also finished the regular season strong. The Blackhawks are a young team without much playoff experience. Just getting to the second round is a great achievement for the Chicago franchise.


Boston Bruins over Carolina Hurricane

I think the Bruins will end this series quickly. They destroyed the Montreal Canadiens in four games and I don't think Carolina will fair much better. Boston's the most complete team. They have a Vezina Trophy finalist in Tim Thomas and a Norris Trophy finalist in Zdeno Chara. They play a great defensive system, but still have explosive scoring depth. The Hurricane are tired and worn after their seven game series with the New Jersey Devils that they just barely won.


Pittsburgh Penguins over Washington Capitals

The most exciting match-up of the second round should be Pittsburgh/Washington. Arguably the leagues top three players in Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby will be in the same series. Both teams are coming out of long first round series and this series could be just as long. I'm picking Pittsburgh because of their experience in last year's playoffs and because of the crazy one-two punch of Crosby and Malkin on different lines. The Penguins hurt bad after last season's Cup final and I think that'll give them enough push to pull past Washington.

GET OUT YOUR BROOM, IT'S TIME FOR A SWEEP!

Right now, there's a possibility that half of the first round NHL playoff matches could end in sweeps.

The Vancouver Canucks could be the first team to advance into the second round if they finish off the St. Louis Blues tonight.

The Boston Bruins will get a chance to complete their sweep of the Montreal Canadiens tomorrow. It would be a fitting end the Canadiens disappointing centennial year.

The Detroit Red Wings aren't quite in "sweep position" yet as they lead the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-0 going into tonight's game, but with Detroit being the powerhouse they are, I wouldn't be surprised if Columbus' first trip to the playoffs ends in a sweep.

How embarrassed would the President's Trophy winning San Jose Sharks be if they were not only beaten in the first round but swept! The Anaheim Ducks take their series against their California rivals to Anaheim tonight leading 2-0. I've said before that San Jose's awful playoff record wasn't Ron Wilson's fault.