Vancouver Canucks Fans Have Spoken: No Surprise Team Awards

Vancouver Canucks team awards for the 2021-’22 season, including those voted on by the fans, were handed out at Rogers Arena on Thursday night during the game with the Los Angeles Kings.

Vancouver Hockey Now made our picks back on April 22nd if you’re looking for a non-scientific comparison. VHN and the fans shared some karma apparently – we matched 3 for 4.

There were really no surprises from where we were sitting.

The Vancouver Canucks unsung hero award was announced first, named after Fred J. Hume, the Hockey Hall of Famer and former mayor of Vancouver who helped bring the Canucks to town.

Luke Schenn picked up the honour. He happened to be our pick as well, you can read our rationale at the link referenced above. Bottom line, he was all in physically all of the time and always had his teammates’ backs. He also handled a lot more minutes than he thought he was going to before the season started and he did so admirably.

Next came the Babe Pratt Trophy for best Vancouver Canucks defenceman. No surprise to anyone, it went to Quinn Hughes. We’re witness to the early steps of what should be a prolific career.

Since the voting started last week, Hughes has broken the Vancouver Canucks single season points record for a defenceman, now at 67 with one game to play.

The Cyclone Taylor Trophy for the Vancouver Canucks most valuable player went to goaltender Thatcher Demko, which was overwhelmingly expected.

The Pavel Bure Award for most exciting Vancouver Canucks player went to JT Miller. This is also not a surprise, simply when you consider three of his six game-winning goals came in overtime. That’s just one example. The fact that he’s racked up 98 points this season with one game to play doesn’t hurt either.

As important as JT was to the hockey club scoring-wise and while his big moments were plentiful, Garland on most nights was literally worth the price of admission. My potentially offensive ‘circus monkey’ moniker wasn’t far off. Dude is a circus, in the old fashioned, wonderful way.

That was part of our rationale for selecting Conor Garland for the award. Off the board? No way, completely legit, we can tell you from watching every minute of every game. But there was no chance in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that the team would have given the award to anyone besides their leading scorer Miller, particularly with Demko winning Canucks MVP.

The Vancouver Canucks also handed out three awards that are a bit more cut-and-dry and/or behind the scenes.

Miller won the Three-Star Award for the cumulative number of post-game stars earned at Rogers Arena.

He also won the Cyrus H. McLean Trophy as the team’s leading scorer. It’s named after the former president of the Western League Canucks. Miller can reach 100 points on the season if he nabs two against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night in the Canucks final game.

Finally, there’s the Daniel and Henrik Sedin Award for Vancouver Canucks Community Leadership. The winner, inactive forward Brandon Sutter, who has tried to stay busy while missing the entire season with long-haul Covid symptoms.