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theScore’s picks for the 2019-20 NHL Awards
Each of our six hockey editors at theScore selected a winner and two runners-up for the NHL's most hotly debated individual honors.
Those votes were then assigned values - three points for a first-place vote, two points for second, and a single point for third - and the totals were added up to determine the results.
Here's who we believe should claim the hardware, and who deserves honorable mentions for their efforts:
Hart Trophy

Winner: Nathan MacKinnon
Second: Leon Draisaitl
Third: Artemi Panarin
MacKinnon's otherworldly talents are no secret, and there's little doubt the Colorado Avalanche superstar was the NHL's most valuable player in 2019-20. He ranked fifth in the league with 93 points, a whopping 43 points more than Colorado's second-best producer.
The gifted forward carried the Avalanche to within two points of the top spot in the Central Division despite injuries to linemates Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog, as well as to No. 1 netminder Philipp Grubauer.
MacKinnon came oh-so-close to winning the Hart in 2018, narrowly losing to Taylor Hall in one of the tightest votes ever. Two years later, it's clear MacKinnon is worthy of being named the league's MVP for the first time.
Draisaitl should be lauded for his outstanding season after leading the league with 110 points and finishing fourth with 43 goals. However, 16 of those markers and 44 of those points came on the power play, when he played alongside arguably the best player in the world, Connor McDavid, who nearly tallied 100 points overall himself.
Four of our editors gave MacKinnon first-place votes, while Draisaitl received the other two. Panarin was given two second-place nods and two third-place votes, as our crew wanted to acknowledge his importance to the New York Rangers' success, and the fact he notched 20 more points than his next-closest teammate.
Norris Trophy

Winner: Roman Josi
Second: John Carlson
Third: Victor Hedman
Carlson posted 10 more points than Josi (75 to 65) in the same number of games, but the Nashville Predators rearguard was the only player on his team to crack 50. That underscores how much more important Josi was to his club.
Plus, it's not all about points, especially with defensemen. Josi averaged over a full minute of ice time more than Carlson, who benefited from playing in the Capitals' high-flying, second-ranked offense featuring Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Evgeny Kuznetsov, while Josi skated with a less talented supporting cast.
The Predators blue-liner's underlying numbers were also superior, as he produced better Expected Goals For, Scoring Chances For, and Corsi For rates than his Capitals counterpart. Josi is a more complete defenseman, and he was the best player at his position in 2019-20.
Vezina Trophy

Winner: Connor Hellebuyck
Second: Tuukka Rask
Third: Darcy Kuemper
Hellebuyck won our group over unanimously, and for good reason. The Winnipeg Jets goaltender was stellar despite being besieged while playing behind a depleted defense corps. The Jets played without the suspended and now-departed Dustin Byfuglien all season, and they also dealt with several other key injuries to blue-liners.
Hellebuyck suited up for more contests than all of his counterparts except Carey Price, trailed only Andrei Vasilevskiy in wins, and led the NHL in shutouts, all while facing the most shots and the third-most shots per 60 minutes among those who played 40-plus games. Meanwhile, Rask faced the 16th-most shots per 60.
The Boston Bruins netminder carved out a better save percentage, but he played 17 fewer games. Rask should be commended for his league-leading 19.69 goals saved above average (Hellebuyck ranked third with 14.33), but the Finnish veteran did that on the NHL's best team, and with a far better defensive group in front of him.
Calder Trophy

Winner: Cale Makar
Second: Quinn Hughes
Third: Elvis Merzlikins
While both Makar and Hughes put together outstanding campaigns, there's more than enough evidence to support the Avalanche phenom becoming the NHL's rookie of the year.
He led all qualified rookies in points per game (0.88), and Makar held an advantage over Hughes in both Expected Goals For percentage (53.49 to 52.85) and Scoring Chances For percentage (55.38 to 51.19), showing he drove possession better.
Makar also topped all rookie blue-liners with 12 goals (four more than Hughes), eight even-strength markers (three more than Hughes), and 31 even-strength points (three more than Hughes) despite playing 11 fewer games than his Western Conference rival.
Hughes paced all rookies in points - edging out Makar by three - while logging nearly a minute more per contest than his Colorado peer. However, the Vancouver Canucks wunderkind collected 25 of his 53 points on the NHL's fourth-ranked power play, whereas Makar only notched 19 of his 50 points on the Avalanche's 19th-ranked unit.
Jack Adams Award

Winner: John Tortorella
Runners-up: Mike Sullivan, Alain Vigneault
Tortorella has earned this honor twice before, but the quotable Columbus Blue Jackets head coach may have strung together his most impressive regular-season work to date in 2019-20.
He guided the Blue Jackets to a playoff spot despite the offseason departures of previous franchise fixtures Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, along with Matt Duchene. Columbus defensive cornerstone Seth Jones missed the club's final 14 games with an ankle injury, and earlier in the campaign, No. 1 goaltender Joonas Korpisalo was hurt in a shootout after a clock error wiped out the Blue Jackets' winning goal near the end of regulation.
Merzlikins' subsequent emergence as a capable starting puck-stopper helped the Blue Jackets finish strong, but Tortorella kept his team focused and competitive amid everything it dealt with to earn this honor.
Sullivan and Vigneault tied for second place in our voting. The Pittsburgh Penguins bench boss warrants recognition for his team's performance while it persevered through significant injuries, and the Philadelphia Flyers head coach deserves credit after his club unexpectedly finished with the NHL's sixth-best record.
Selke Trophy

Winner: Sean Couturier
Second: Patrice Bergeron
Third: Ryan O'Reilly
Bergeron is tied with Bob Gainey for the most Selke wins in NHL history with four, and the 34-year-old Bruins star is a perennial contender for this award. However, Couturier proved this season he's now the league's best defensive forward.
The Flyers center - who finished second in award voting two years ago - remains arguably the game's most underrated player. He posted excellent possession rates while consistently matching up against his opponents' best players and being deployed in all situations. He plays a true 200-foot game and is ultra-durable. Couturier suited up for every contest in 2019-20, and he's missed only two games combined over his last three seasons.
O'Reilly, the defending Selke recipient, produced another strong campaign both offensively and defensively, but Couturier has made the best case and is primed to take home the hardware for the first time.
(Analytics source: Natural Stat Trick)
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Greatest sports movie characters: Wily mentors and young bucks highlight Part 8
theScore is counting down the 100 best fictional characters in sports movie history, with a new post every weekday until July 3.
100-91 | 90-81 | 80-71 | 70-61 | 60-51
50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1
30. Mr. Miyagi
"The Karate Kid" (1984), "The Karate Kid Part II" (1986), "The Karate Kid Part III (1989), and "The Next Karate Kid" (1994)
Before his role as mentor to Daniel LaRusso in the first three "The Karate Kid" films, Pat Morita was mostly known as a comedy actor on television shows like "Happy Days." His portrayal of Mr. Miyagi, a soft-spoken and big-hearted karate instructor who helps "Daniel-san" with real-life issues, helped revitalize his career and earned him an Academy Award nomination.
29. Amanda Whurlitzer
"The Bad News Bears" (1976)
In an environment where it was frowned upon for a girl to play on a boys' baseball team, Whurlitzer (Tatum O'Neal) rose above the ignorance with her beaming fastball and two-and-a-half-foot-breaking curve. But, even talented 11-year-olds like Whurlitzer have problems to deal with, like constant rejection by her coach and mother's ex-boyfriend, Morris Buttermaker, whom she views as a father figure.
28. Paul Crewe
"The Longest Yard" (1974)
Warning: Video contains coarse language
Just coming into his talents as a leading actor, Burt Reynolds deftly threaded the needle between comedy and emotional sensitivity as Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a former star NFL quarterback turned inmate.
Of course, Reynolds was no novice on the gridiron. Before his distinguished acting career, he played halfback at Florida State in the mid-1950s until injuries derailed his athletic career.
27. Monica Wright
"Love & Basketball" (2000)
Few movies are told from the vantage point of female characters; even fewer feature Black women as protagonists. Through Wright (Sanaa Lathan), director Gina Prince-Bythewood explores all aspects of basketball - both the on-court trials shared by male athletes and the off-court expectations that are wholly unique to women in sport.
26. Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez
"The Sandlot" (1993)
Rodriguez (Mike Vitar) had a lot going for him in "The Sandlot." He was far and away the team's best player and navigated even the most intense situations with ease. But, the coolest thing about "The Jet" was his acceptance of Scotty Smalls. Rodriguez was a better person than his peers and welcomed the new kid on the block into the team even though he wasn't very good at baseball. His reward? A friend for life.
25. 'Fast' Eddie Felson
"The Hustler" (1961) and "The Color of Money" (1986)
Few actors exuded cool as effortlessly as Paul Newman, making him the perfect pool shark in "The Hustler," then mentor to Vincent (Tom Cruise) in the sequel 25 years later.
His performance in "The Color of Money" finally won Newman an Academy Award after eight previous nominations.
24. Doug Glatt
"Goon" (2011) & "Goon: Last of the Enforcers" (2017)
Warning: Video contains coarse language
After more than a decade of playing frat boys and jocks in films like "Dude, Where's My Car?" and the "American Pie" series, Seann William Scott both played into and subverted that typecasting with Doug Glatt. Despite his success as a minor-league hockey enforcer, Doug is ultimately a noble meathead with an undercurrent of sweetness and sensitivity.
23. Scott Howard
"Teen Wolf" (1985)
As metaphors for puberty go, literally turning into a werewolf is on the nose. While not quite as notable as his star-making performance in the "Back to the Future" series, Michael J. Fox's boy-next-door charm is still on display (even when obscured by prosthetics and makeup). The moral of the story: No one cares what you look like as long as you're really good at putting the basketball in the net.
22. Adonis Johnson/Creed
"Creed" (2015) and "Creed II" (2018)
In the two "Creed" films, Michael B. Jordan helps rejuvenate the "Rocky" franchise by playing the extramarital son of former boxing champion, Apollo Creed. The younger Creed follows a nearly identical path to boxing fame as Rocky, whom he convinces to become his trainer, but also tugs on the audience's heartstrings by helping the retired fighter battle through severe illness.
21. Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh
"Bull Durham" (1988)
Warning: Video contains coarse language
LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) is a hotshot pitcher with a million-dollar arm and a 10-cent head in "Bull Durham." The character, who is based loosely on real-life pitcher Steve Dalkowski, aggravates at first because of his cockiness and know-it-all personality but becomes someone to root for as he blossoms into a big leaguer under the tutelage of Crash Davis and Annie Savoy.
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There’s no need to pretend sports will save us all right now
The trials and tribulations of the sporting world over the past few months can be bookended fairly neatly by two incidents. The first helped trigger the shutdown of pro sports, and the second demonstrated the folly of trying to bring them back as we once knew them.
On March 11, two days after he made a ridiculous show of touching every voice recorder and microphone in his vicinity following a press scrum, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. The NBA suspended its season minutes after Gobert's positive test was announced, and the rest of Western society soon followed suit.
Three months later, Novak Djokovic, the world's top-ranked men's tennis player, organized the Adria Tour, a charity exhibition series scheduled to be played in cities across four Balkan countries. In Djokovic's words, the tour was designed "to help both established and up-and-coming tennis players from southeastern Europe to gain access to some competitive tennis while the various tours are on hold due to the COVID-19 situation." While the event was perhaps conceived with what Djokovic called "a pure heart and sincere intentions," it was staged in an alarmingly irresponsible manner.
The first legs of the exhibition were played in relatively unafflicted Serbia and Croatia, with none of the now-familiar distancing regulations in place: No testing was required of the participants when they arrived, unmasked fans packed stadiums, players hugged and shook hands with each other and the umpires, ball kids handled towels.

Off the court, the players played pickup basketball, posed for photographs with tournament staff and fans, and partied with their shirts off at a club in Belgrade. The second half of the tour was canceled after Djokovic, his wife Jelena, his coach Goran Ivanisevic, two trainers, three other players (Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Coric, and Viktor Troicki), and Troicki's pregnant wife tested positive for COVID-19. Lord knows how many spectators were also exposed to the virus.
In the wake of their public embarrassments, both Gobert and Djokovic tried to wipe the egg off their faces by encouraging the public to follow the appropriate guidelines and take the pandemic more seriously than they had. In his apologetic statement, Djokovic vaguely committed to "sharing health resources" with Belgrade and Zadar.
Gobert's antics didn't rise to nearly the level of Djokovic's brazen idiocy (especially given Djokovic's belief in pseudoscience), but it's easy to see the parallels, both in the karmic retribution experienced by those who scoffed in the face of a public health crisis and in the opportunity for those incidents to turn into teaching moments.
Pro athletes - most of them fit, healthy, young, and rich, with access to the best health care resources their wealth affords them - represent about the least vulnerable population imaginable when it comes to the coronavirus. But this moment isn't just about personal responsibility, it's about social responsibility: a commitment to making sacrifices for the good of everyone around us. Athletes feeling invulnerable is actually a big part of the problem.

The Orlando Pride were forced to withdraw from the NWSL Challenge Cup after a slew of players reportedly contracted the virus at a bar. Tom Brady practiced with his new Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates against the advice of the NFL players' union. He responded to the backlash by Instagramming, "Only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" - proof that some people still don't get it, and refuse to even try. As Andy Slavitt, the chief of Medicare and Medicaid at the end of President Barack Obama's second term, succinctly put it: "Science is not our missing ingredient in beating this virus. Empathy is."
That reality leaves pro sports in a strange place. It's unclear what they have to offer a world in which an airborne illness has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in a matter of months and shows no signs of slowing down.
As much as anything, this pandemic has forced us to consider to whom and to what we are responsible. With so many elected representatives abdicating their leadership responsibilities, it's been left to the people to make sense of the missteps and misinformation, the disregard for the advice and warnings of the scientific community, and the mandate to Open Up the Economy and Get Back To Work at all costs. Everyone's basically been told to fend for themselves. There's been a dispiriting lack of common cause.
That's the context in which Djokovic took it upon himself to treat the people of his country to his "philanthropic idea." While he wound up completely undercutting his purpose, and has deservedly shouldered the brunt of the blame, it's worth pointing out that neither the tournament organizers he worked with nor government officials in Serbia or Croatia made any attempt to mitigate the risk. Even after the fact, all the president of the Croatian Tennis Federation could say for himself was: "Some minor mistakes may have been made, but the idea was a good one. In Zadar, we had players for whom we usually have to pay 10 million euros to bring them, it was an opportunity that may never come to us again." Priorities, people.
We talk a lot about athletes' platforms, and the type of messaging those platforms can and should be used for. But the message people need to be receiving right now is that in spite of what various corporate entities or government officials might have us believe, we're still dealing with a deadly virus that is spreading undetected, ravaging marginalized populations, and may cause lasting damage in even asymptomatic carriers. (Gobert, by the way, says he still hasn't fully recovered his sense of smell.) It's unclear how the return of sports helps convey that message.

While Djokovic and his infected peers self-isolate, the NBA is forging ahead with a return to games a month from now in Orlando, even though case counts, hospitalizations, and positive test rates in Florida are exploding, and some Disney World employees began a petition to keep the theme park closed. NBA commissioner Adam Silver suggested that despite the spike of infections in surrounding Orange County, players will be safer inside the NBA’s carefully managed Disney site than they'd be in their home cities.
That may be true, but if the virus gets in - which seems eminently possible given that Disney staffers won't be staying on site or be subject to coronavirus testing - it will have the potential to spread quickly among a group of people playing a contact sport indoors. And on top of concern for player safety, there should be concern for the potential collateral damage involving non-players inside the bubble. (Consider, for example, the NBA cameraman who had to be placed in a medically induced coma after contracting the virus in March.)
Just getting league personnel into the bubble virus-free is going to be a huge challenge. Sixteen NBA players slated to travel to Orlando tested positive for the virus last week, including Djokovic's countryman Nikola Jokic, who recently spent time with the tennis star in Serbia. Jokic's Denver Nuggets had to close their practice facility because of a separate spate of infections. The already shorthanded Brooklyn Nets are dealing with their own cluster of cases.
And all of that is to say nothing of the worldwide marches for racial justice. For a league in which three-quarters of the players are African American, there's a particularly urgent sense of responsibility to be a visible part of the Black Lives Matter movement in its fight to, among other things, dismantle the criminal justice system that is disproportionately killing and incarcerating Black people.
The National Basketball Players Association announced that "the goal of the season restart in Orlando will be to take collective action to combat systemic racism and promote social justice," and the NBA and WNBA are reportedly planning to paint "Black Lives Matter" on all the courts the leagues will use at Disney and the IMG Academy. A handful of WNBA stars have opted out of their season in order to focus on furthering the cause.

The extent of the players' responsibility to each other has also been a subject of some debate within the union. Athletes' careers are short, and not all of them are multi-millionaires who can withstand a year of missed paychecks. There's a huge incentive for them to not only get paid for the rest of this season but to prevent the league's owners from tearing up the current collective bargaining agreement.
Some players in the league's middle class have even argued that it's important they get paid specifically because of the systemic racial inequities fueling protests, inequities that have prevented Black people from creating generational wealth. That can't happen without the majority of players, particularly the high-profile ones, being on board.
"The financial stuff that's coming in is so heavy, and I think everybody has to share in that responsibility," one general manager told The Athletic's Sam Amick in an anonymous survey. "If you don’t at least try and see how this goes … the NBA could be impacted easily in the next five to 10 years in a way that it'd be very similar to what (the media) industry is going through as well. There's just going to be mass layoffs, and it could really change."
Other sports leagues have run into their own complications with their attempts to resume. MLB and NHL training camps in Florida were shut down following outbreaks. The PGA Tour, which resumed its schedule in mid-June, saw numerous positive tests last week, despite the fact golf is as conducive to physical distancing as any sport. Several MLB (and NBA) players have opted out in order to be with their families.
It's easy to understand why sports are trying so hard to come back in spite of all the challenges, and why so many people want them to. Apart from being billion-dollar enterprises with a ton of employees, professional sport is one of the closest things we have to a global cultural imperative. Part of the reason sports have become such a gigantic industry is that they've been successfully sold as a social good, perhaps even a social necessity.

That same logic is what's led franchise owners to extort public funds in order to build new stadiums, preying on the illusion that these privately owned businesses actually belong to all of us. Perhaps that's also the logic that made the Los Angeles Lakers, a franchise valued at $4.4 billion, feel entitled to a $4.6-million government loan that was intended as a bailout for struggling small businesses amid the shutdown.
The message that's been peddled to us is that the return of sports will correlate to a return to some semblance of normalcy and that this correlation is in the public interest; that sports can help spiritually bring people together at a time when it's important that they remain physically apart.
"We’re coming back because sports matter in our society," Silver told reporters on a conference call last week. "They bring people together when they need it the most."
Sports are amazing, and plenty of people believe in their unifying power (myself very much included), but it feels awfully disingenuous to paint that as the reason the NBA is trying to return. "You know and I know why we are playing - for the money," another GM told Amick. "If not that, do you really think we would be playing?"
Which is a perfectly understandable reason to want to play. There's no need to pretend sports are going to save us right now. In March, Silver's decision to halt the season had a domino effect with other sports and the cumulative move may have forced society at large to realize the scope of the problem. Returning to play is a different calculus. Maybe they'll momentarily distract from the natural and man-made forces currently ravaging the globe, for anyone who wants the distraction. But at the end of the day, athletes live in the same world we live in, and they aren't impervious to those forces. If anything, sport's central function right now seems to be serving as a visible example of how profit-driven businesses behave in a global disaster.
There are, of course, more responsible ways to resume sports than the way Djokovic and the Adria Tour organizers did - as leagues like the Bundesliga, English Premier League, and the Korean Baseball Organization have shown - but that doesn't mean it will do much good for anybody other than the people who will be getting paid (or even much good for some of those who will).
It may be that pro sports in North America come back and stay back, that those returns result in minimal additional infections, and that a wide spectrum of viewers takes great joy and comfort in the spectacle. But that scenario, should it come to pass, will be less a triumph of sporting institutions and their healing power than an illustration of how a population can be kept safe so long as it has enough resources, will power, and financial incentive.
One way or another, sports is not our missing ingredient in beating this virus, empathy is. And the former won't amount to anything without the latter.
Joe Wolfond is a features writer for theScore.
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Coyotes’ Kessel says he endured more injuries this season than any other
Arizona Coyotes forward Phil Kessel kept his 844-game ironman streak intact this season, but it wasn't without a few bumps and bruises along the way.
Kessel told reporters during a video call Tuesday that he probably endured more injuries this season than any other campaign in his career, according to The Athletic's Craig Morgan.
The 32-year-old had his worst season since his rookie campaign in 2006-07. Acquired by the Coyotes in an offseason blockbuster trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Kessel tallied just 14 goals and 38 points in 70 games.
The NHL's hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic has given Kessel time to recuperate ahead of Arizona's tentative qualifying-round matchup against the Nashville Predators.
Kessel's streak of consecutive games played ranks sixth on the all-time list.
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Report: Olympic participation part of NHL’s modified CBA
NHL players will return to the Olympics if the league's modified CBA is finalized, pending an agreement with the IOC, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reports.
TSN's Pierre LeBrun reported that the proposed CBA extension could include participation in the 2022 and 2026 Winter Games.
The NHL didn't partake in the most recent Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018. It was the first time since 1994 that NHLers didn't participate.
Canada has won back-to-back gold medals in Olympics that featured NHL players.
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Report: Players can opt out of NHL’s return to play, pending agreement
The NHL and the players' union agreed on an interim extension for all contracts that would've expired at midnight on Wednesday, according to TSN's Frank Seravalli, and the agreement also allows players to opt out of the league's return-to-play plan.
The pact is pending completion of the new collective bargaining agreement and agreements on Phase 3 (training camp) and Phase 4 (games).
NHL players aren't paid for the postseason, so there are no financial repercussions for those who decide to opt out.
However, players will reportedly receive their 2020-21 signing bonuses as scheduled on Wednesday.
Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price and New York Rangers forward Artemi Panarin have voiced concerns about resuming action.
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NHL Rumor Mill – July 1, 2020
NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – July 1, 2020
Report: NHL teams to pay 2020-21 signing bonuses as scheduled
NHL teams are expected to pay players' signing bonuses for the 2020-21 season as scheduled on July 1, TSN's Bob McKenzie reports.
Funds may not actually reach players until next week due to Canada Day on July 1 and Independence Day on July 4, McKenzie notes. He adds that players league-wide are owed more than $300 million in bonus money.
July 1 is the traditional opening of free agency, but the NHL and NHL Players' Association reportedly agreed earlier in June to extend all contracts expiring at the end of the 2019-20 season until Oct. 31 due to the hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Some players are set to collect massive bonuses, the most lucrative of which will go a triumvirate of Toronto Maple Leafs stars. Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner are each owed approximately $15 million.
Other notable players set to cash in are Carey Price ($13 million), Connor McDavid ($13 million), Artemi Panarin ($12 million), and Erik Karlsson ($10 million).
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