Leafs netminder Jonas Gustavsson was revealed as the Toronto hockey writers' choice for the Masterton Trophy today at the Air Canada Centre, and around the league, other nominees have slowly been coming in this week. I'll keep a running tally here of who is selected from each team for the award dedicated to the player who displays "qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey."
Anaheim: Teemu Selanne
Atlanta: Jim Slater
Boston: Mark Recchi
Buffalo: Ryan Miller
Calgary: Craig Conroy
Carolina: Rod Brind’Amour
Chicago: Brent Sopel
Colorado: Matt Hendricks
Columbus: Jared Boll
Dallas: Mike Modano
Detroit: Tomas Holmstrom
Edmonton: Jason Strudwick
Florida: Bryan Allen
Los Angeles: Brad Richardson
Minnesota: Guillaume Latendresse
Montreal: Jaroslav Halak
Nashville: Joel Ward
New Jersey: Patrik Elias
NY Islanders: Jack Hillen
NY Rangers: Chris Drury
Ottawa: Matt Carkner
Philadelphia: Mike Leighton
Phoenix: Vernon Fiddler
Pittsburgh: Bill Guerin
San Jose: Jed Ortmeyer
St. Louis: Erik Johnson
Tampa Bay: Kurtis Foster
Toronto: Jonas Gustavsson
Vancouver: Henrik Sedin
Washington: Jose Theodore
Essentially what happens with this award is all of the members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association give their votes to their local chapter chairman (in Toronto, that's Lance Hornby), they're compiled and each chapter names its nominee. At the end of the regular season, from the 30 players nominated, we'll all vote again for the leaguewide winner. (I believe we pick a top three and rank them.)
That winner will be named at the awards ceremony in Vegas in late June.
In my mind, the best candidates this year are players like David Booth, Kurtis Foster, Fernando Pisani and Jose Theodore. We'll have to wait and see if they're nominated.
If you see players named who I don't have listed here, drop me an email and I'll post it.
