NHL head coaches name their picks for the Selke Trophy.

NHL head coaches pick a winner.

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Published 3 years ago
NHL head coaches name their picks for the Selke Trophy.
Anthony Nesmith/CSM/Zuma

Every year the National Hockey League gives out individual awards for players that have proven themselves to be exceptional at certain aspects of the game, both on and off the ice, and every year there is plenty of debate over who should win each respective award. Usually it is relatively easy to make a strong case one way or the other, but the award that often causes the most bickering among fans and pundits alike always seems to be the Frank J. Selke Trophy, simply known as the Selke.

The trophy used to be awarded to the top defensive forward in the league but has recently evolved to favor forwards that, while strong defensively, can play on both sides of the ice. As a result over the years it has become the defacto award for the best two way forwards in the game, so right there there is already plenty of room for debate if you're of a more old school mindset and prefer to reward defense over offense. Recently National Hockey League insider Pierre LeBrun tried to get some more insight into this debate and to do so he asked some of the men best positioned to make evaluations regarding player talent, the NHL's head coaches. 

LeBrun asked all of the coaches he surveyed to give him just their top pick for this year's award, and all but one of the coaches in the NHL chose to respond. With 30 of a possible 31 votes counted I can say safely that this was pretty much a two team race, and the names at the top of the list will come as no surprise to those who have followed the Selke voting for the past few years in the NHL.

First here were the results as per Pierre LeBrun:

Patrice Bergeron, 14
Sean Couturier, 10
Ryan O’Reilly, 3
Anze Kopitar, 2
Anthony Cirelli, 1

No doubt Bergeron getting the majority of the votes here has a lot to do with his reputation as the top two way forward in the NHL. In fact one of the coaches who responded, and one of those who had cast his ballot for Couturier over Bergeron, pointed to the fact that Couturier led Bergeron "in almost every relevant statistical category" this season. Either way it sounds like we are going to see a tight race between Couturier, who seems destined to win the Selke at some point in his career, and four time Selke winner Bergeron.

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