The annual NHL Awards are decided on by a variety of different groups.
A couple of awards are simply given to players based on statistics: the Art Ross, Rocket Richard, and the William M. Jennings. The Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) votes for most of the awards: the Hart, Norris, Calder, Selke, Lady Byng, Masterton, and Conn Smythe. The NHL's general managers decide the Vezina Award and are part of a group that votes for the Jim Gregory Award for GM of the year. The Broadcasters' Association decides on the Jack Adams for coach of the year.
Then there's Mark Messier, who gets to decide all on his own the winner of his made-up Mark Messier Award.
The players themselves only get to vote on one award, though it's been argued that they should vote for more of them. The players decide on the Ted Lindsay Award, formerly known as the Lester B. Pearson Award. It's given to the "most outstanding player" from that season and has been won by a member of the Vancouver Canucks twice: Markus Näslund in 2002-03 and Daniel Sedin in 2010-11.
If the players got to vote for other awards, who might win them? We can get some hints from the annual player poll conducted by the NHL Players Association (NHLPA).
The NHLPA asked 663 players to respond to 12 questions of varying hockey-relatedness, from the best players at each position to which player has the best fashion sense. Just one Canuck shows up among the responses: Quinn Hughes.
The Canucks' captain finished second to Cale Makar for "best overall defenceman," though it should be said he was a distant second. Hughes received 7.44% of the vote compared to 71.78% for Makar, indicating a pretty big gap in respect levels between the two rivals.
Since the poll only asked for one response to each question and not a ranking, it's easy to sort out the votes: 463 of the respondents think Makar is the best defenceman in the NHL; 48 of the respondents think Hughes is the best defenceman in the NHL. Victor Hedman, Roman Josi, and Adam Fox were among the other defenceman to receive votes.
That's an improvement from last year, where Hughes finished with 4.04% of the vote, albeit to a differently-worded version of the question: "If you need to win one game, who is the defenceman you want on your team?"
Hughes also got some love for his skating prowess in this year's poll, finishing fourth in response to the question, "Who is the best overall skater?"
Unsurprisingly, Connor McDavid finished first with 66.41% of the vote, then Makar with 11.41%, Nathan MacKinnon with 8.91%, and then Hughes with 2.19%. That means 14 respondents think Hughes is the best skater in the NHL.
The wisdom of the voters might be called into question, however, based on their responses to, "If you need to win a faceoff, who would you pick?" Sidney Crosby finished first with 20.39% of the vote, which makes sense, but shockingly, one of the league's best faceoff men with a perfect 1-for-1 record on faceoffs didn't receive a single vote: Filip Hronek.
For shame.
