Selke award

Today we are going to be discussing the Selke award. The Selke award is handed out the best defensive forward and this year 3 players who were deserving of this award.

First let’s start with Mitch Marner. Mitch played all 82 games, tied his career high with 76 points and was +32 on the year. He did all this while playing huge minutes on the penalty kill and shutting down some of the best players in the league.

Next we had Mark Scheifele. Mark led his team in scoring with 62 points as well as in plus/minus with a plus 17. He also played lots of tough minutes lining up against the best centers in the league and playing top centre on one of the better penalty killing units in the RSHL this year.

Finally, is Ivan Barbashev. Even though he did not have the best plus/minus of the three, only being a +6, he put up a large number of points (42) and was on top penalty killing unit and like his other two nominees played lots of tough matchups against better skilled forwards.

This race was a close one, but the winner of the seasons Selke award is Mitch Marner. When we reached out to Mitch to comment on his win, unlike his well liked and respected teammates he was not searching for words. Marner was quick to say " I'm awesome, I provide points. I defend, I can do it all. I don't even get the respect from my own coach to play top line with the big boys. I should have won this, it's a shock the voters got this right." His line mate, Pettersson, had this to say when asked for a comment on the win for Marner. stepped up and simply said " I hate that jerk, I'd like him off my line."