Wilderness Walk: Kaprizov’s Hart, Spurgeon’s Norris

That’s Wild

• The NHL Awards were last night (we didn’t know either) and the Minnesota Wild got some true representation once the voting results were released. While for just a week it felt that Kirill Kaprizov actually had a chance to walk away with the Hart Trophy, he received enough votes at the end of the season to finish seventh.

• And Kaprizov wasn’t the only Wild skater to get their name on the final list of candidates, as Jared Spurgeon of all defensemen, got one single fifth-place Norris Trophy vote — enough to show up in the final ranking. Spurgeon was just his typical stable self, and if you told us that a Wild blueliner got some Norris nods, our guess would be Jonas Brodin, but I guess he will have to wait.

• In other award news, Matt Boldy finished eighth in Calder voting and we determined that if he played the entire season, he would have been a finalist for sure. [Hockey Wilderness]
• Outside of the awards, the Wild might be locking up a young talent by the name of Connor Dewar to a two-year contract. [Hockey Wilderness]

Off the trail...

• A member of the Toronto Maple Leafs earned the Hart Trophy for the first time in decades, as Auston Matthews walked away with the MVP title last night. [Pension Plan Puppets]
• Pete DeBoer is probably going to be officially named as the new head coach of the Dallas Stars. [Defending Big D]
• If Andrei Vasilevskiy is back to being superhuman, then the Stanley Cup Final is far from over. [Sportsnet]
• NHL free agency is just around the corner and there are loads of players hitting the open market. Who are the boom-or-busts? Who are some value picks? And who are simply the best options? [ESPN]