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.
Original source here
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