BREAKING: Wild’s forward contending for coveted NHL award!

Wild's forward contending for coveted NHL award! 

With the NHL’s regular season concluding this week, the league has issued its annual awards ballots to both the team’s general managers and members of the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association. For the Minnesota Wild, who may see as many as five award nominees at this summers awards ceremony, the obvious choice for the Lady Byng Trophy is Mikael Granlund.

The Lady Byng is a notoriously difficult award to quantify given its ambiguous description. The annual distinction goes to the NHL player who ” exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability”.  Historically, how that has been interpreted is the best player in the NHL who takes the fewest penalties.

Granlund must be considered a frontrunner for the award and all one has to do to make the point is review his statistics for the stellar 2016-17 season. In 81 games with the Wild this season the 25 year-old Finn has 69 points and only 12 penalty minutes. And don’t mistake his lack of infractions for a lack of bite, Granlund doesn’t play a soft game.

"They both compete extremely hard," head coach Bruce Boudreau said when speaking about both Granlund and his teammate Jared Spurgeon. "Granny was very physical in the World Cup that I started paying attention." 

For Granlund, an award nomination would be another feather in his cap and further proof of his outstanding breakout campaign. With the playoffs looming however, you’d suspect that he has a much more important trophy on his mind these days.