On a big night for Sidney Crosby, who was nominated for a pair of honors on the heels of a repeat Stanley Cup championship at Las Vegas' NHL awards on Wednesday night, it was the Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid who took home the biggest prize, becoming the youngest player to claim the Hart Trophy since Crosby did in 2007.
An unsurprising nominee for the title of league MVP, McDavid hit the 100-point mark as a 20-year-old centerpiece of Edmonton's offense in 2016-17. He became the first Oiler to reach that milestone since Doug Weight eclipsed the century mark in 1995-96, and his 30 multipoint games helped snap Edmonton's decade-long postseason drought.
A 14-game points streak highlighted his second-year campaign, which featured an even 30 goals to go along with 70 assists, and ensured his capture of the Art Ross Trophy as the league's leading points scorer.
The Hart Trophy, then, is just the latest in what's sure to be a long line of career-long accolades for McDavid if the young Oilers standout's 2016-17 campaign was any indication of what's to come.
Sergei Bobrovsky may have been bested by the eventual Stanley Cup champions in the opening round of this year's Stanley Cup playoffs, but his efforts as the Columbus Blue Jackets' goaltender in 2016-17 did not go unnoticed.
The 28-year-old veteran claimed the Vezina Trophy for the second time in four years during Wednesday's NHL awards ceremony in Las Vegas.
Bobrovsky's 41 wins in 63 starts broke a Blue Jackets record and paved the way for his team's monumental jump in the standings toward a postseason berth. His 2.06 goals-against average and .931 save percentage led the league. And his 14-game winning streak, which kicked off in November and lasted into the new year, was tied for the second longest in NHL history, propelling the Blue Jackets to a 32-point standings improvement from the season before.
The first pick in the NHL draft a year ago, Auston Matthews claimed the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie during Wednesday's NHL awards ceremony in Las Vegas, and his first-year numbers back up the recognition.
With 40 goals for Toronto, he not only outpaced fellow nominees Patrik Laine and Zach Werenski but tied for second among all NHL players, setting Maple Leafs records for most goals and points in a rookie season. His 69 points and 279 shots on goal also led all rookies, and he became just the second teenage rookie to hit the 40-goal mark in the last three decades.
The NHL also says that Matthews was the first player in the modern era of the league (i.e. since the early 1940s) to score four goals in his first NHL game. And he also became the first rookie to light the lamp 40 times in a season since the Washington Capitals' Alex Ovechkin exploded onto the scene in 2005-06.
