We are so late with this most-current entry in our original NHL Saturday miniseries: the awards analysis. Usually, these are more timely, so we apologize for the late, late effort here, as we know the NHL’s next season will start up soon enough. Either way, we had some unique circumstances for these analyses, and we hope you will enjoy the read below as some of these decisions really surprised us, going in blind as we do.

2025 Hart: Connor Hellebuyck, G, Winnipeg (original); Leon Draisaitl, C, Edmonton (revised)

The vote winner here was Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (14.5 Point Shares), the second-best mark overall in the league. Of course, we only do forwards here, but interestingly enough, the top PS earner in the NHL was a defenseman (see below). Yet five of the Top 10 value earners in the league were forwards, so we have plenty to choose from here, initially. Let’s break it down by playoff qualifiers first.

Four of those forwards reached the Stanley Cup postseason: Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl (14.3 PS); Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov (13.6), our pick for this hardware last year; Colorado Avalanche C Nathan MacKinnon (12.7); and Winnipeg left wing Kyle Connor (11.6). Which team had the smallest playoff cushion? Oddly, enough, Edmonton, with “just” 101 points in the standings. So … yeah.

Not only does Draisaitl have the highest PS value, but his team needed him most in order to secure its postseason berth with a playoff cushion of just five points. That inflates his value even more. We award him this Hart Trophy, therefore, his first from us, even though he won the vote in 2020. He topped the NHL in goals scored this season (52) on his way to a sixth 100-point season (106). He’s been a superstar, for sure.

2025 Norris: Cale Makar, Colorado (original, confirmed)

The NHL’s top-value player overall was Colorado’s stellar blueliner, Cale Makar (16.1 PS). He also finished 4.1 PS ahead of the next-best defenseman, while ending up just 0.1 Defensive Point Share out of the top spot on that list. He won the vote, and we will confirm it, readily. Makar is making his way through all the hardware: he won the Calder vote in 2020, while winning both the Norris and Conn Smythe votes in 2022.

We did not agree with the 2020 Calder or the 2022 Norris, but we agree with this one, and we confirmed the Conn Smythe in 2022. As often is the case, these things have a way of working themselves out in the end.

2025 Vezina: Hellebuyck (original); Filip Gustavsson, Minnesota (revised)

Three goalies finished in the league’s Top 10 for value: Hellebuyck (14.5); Tampa Bay veteran Andrei Vasilevskiy (14.2); and Minnesota Wild youngster Filip Gustavsson (12.8). The Jets posted the best record in the league, so that hurts vote-winner Hellebuyck’s actual value here, and with the Wild barely making it into the postseason—by just one point, really—we have to go with Gustavsson here. That’s the value play.

This sucks for Hellebuyck, who posted a 47-12-3 record on the year, but his team was just “too” good for his value to be tops using common sense. Meanwhile, Gustavsson finished sixth in the Vezina vote, but he clearly was the difference between the Wild going golfing in late April and the team having a Cup shot.

2025 Calder: Lane Hutson, D, Montréal (original); Dustin Wolf, G, Calgary (revised)

The Montréal Canadiens had a two-point cushion for the postseason, thanks to Calder vote winner Lane Hutson, a rookie defenseman. His 8.9 PS mark was second among all eligible for this award, and it will be hard to unseat him with that kind of playoff margin on hand. But we should acknowledge Calgary Flames goalie Dustin Wolf (11.1 PS), who got his team to a tie for eighth in the Western Conference standings. But …

The Flames lost the tiebreak to the St. Louis Blues, based on regulation wins, by one victory. Since Wolf’s PS mark is more than 2.0 PS higher, we think that’s good enough to take this trophy away from Hutson. After all, it’s not Wolf’s fault his tam came up short on a tiebreak: his 29-16-8 record was better than his creasemates’ collective mark of 12-11-6. The Calgary coach should have used his rookie goalie more often.

2025 Conn Smythe: Sam Bennett, F, Florida (original); Sergei Bobrovsky, G, Florida (revised)

Out of principle, we will be re-assigning this award, because the winner should have been suspended from the postseason for a deliberate attempt to injure an opponent in the Eastern Conference playoffs—and we despise unethical and immoral athletes. Therefore, who else can we choose? The Florida Panthers won the Cup Finals in six gmes over Edmonton in a rematch from 2024, so we have to scour the winner’s roster here.

Either way, the vote winner was just one of six Panthers skaters to post at least 20 points in the team’s 23-game playoff run. (Why pick the punk? Stupid mediots.) He also managed just a plus-6 rating, which shows he didn’t play great defensive hockey. We’d rather pick C Carter Verhaeghe, who topped the team with 16 assists and 23 points while also posting a plus-12 rating. He is our choice for the best value skater here. But?

Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky faced the most shots of any goaltender in the postseason, and he still posted a 2.20 GAA and three shutouts overall. The Panthers scored a lot, but Bobrovsky made sure they won when they did score. That’s huge, and so we’re giving him this hardware—which makes sense even if we didn’t DQ the vote winner for being a piece of shit. Bobrovsky previously won two Vezinas from us (2013, 2018).