Brodeur captures fourth Vezina; Madden second for Selke

Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur was once again recognized for his outstanding regular season performance by edging San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov to take home his fourth Vezina Trophy in five seasons from tonight’s NHL Awards ceremony in Toronto.

With four Vezinas now on his resume, Brodeur trails only Dominik Hasek, who was voted the top goaltender by the NHL’s general managers a league-record six times. Patrick Roy won the Vezina three times.

Brodeur barely beat out Nabokov with 113 total voting points on 15 first-place votes, 12 second-place votes and two third-place votes. Nabokov finished with 106 points on 13 first-place votes, 13 second-place votes and two third-place votes.

The Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist finished a distant third with 13 points, including one first-place vote and eight third-place votes.

Brodeur also was voted a second-team NHL all-star by members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. Nabokov was named the first-team goalie with 523 voting points (71 first-team votes, 55 second team, 3 third team) Brodeur received 475 voting points (56-61-12). Anaheim’s J.S. Giguere finished third with 82 points (3-8-43).

Devils center John Madden finished second in the voting for the Selke Trophy, which goes to the league’s top defensive forward, for the third time in his career. Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk won the Selke with 557 voting points (43-9-7-3-0). Madden, who won the Selke in 2001 and was also the first runner-up in 2003 and 2004, received 447 voting points (18-18-16-17-16). Detroit’s Henrik Zetterberg was third with 425 points (22-20-6-10-5).

Brodeur finished fifth in the voting for the Hart Trophy and received one first-place vote. Washington’s Alex Ovechkin was the runaway winner of the Hart as the league’s most valuable player and received 128 of a possible 134 first-place votes and 1,313 total voting points (four second-place votes and one third-place vote. Inexplicably, one member of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association that voted left Ovechkin off his ballot. Evgeni Malkin (one), Jarome Iginla (two) Nicklas Lidstrom (two) also received first-place votes.

Malkin (1-66-27-13-13) finished second with 659 total voting points. Iginla was third with 565 (2-41-33-26-15)

Brodeur received 239 voting points (1-8-19-21-15).

Comments

[bobo]

Way to go Marty. Glad also to see the Queen so far behind Marty.

[Brodeur30]

Another vezina for the great Brodeur!! too bad queen. Better luck next year...

[Matt M.]

I am a little disappointed that Brodeur wasn't selected to the First All-Star Team, but the Vezina is the prestigious honor.

Thanks for the breakdown Tom. Where did Marty finish in the Hart voting? Was he fourth, or did he finish lower?

[Grant]

Just proves to the league that Marty doesnt need Scott Stevens, Neidemyer, Ken D., or Rafalski to win the Vezina

[jules]

Congrats to Marty. LOL @ 13 votes. Nice!

[Brodie30]

Thanks for posting the points, Tom. I usually have to wait for the Hockey News to get them. Vezina was a two man race all along and a close one at that. Glad Marty got more first place votes as well as winning the points. Hmmm... I wonder which GM was the only one to vote Henrik first (I guess he is obligated though). Bummer about Madden but every year writers interpret the Selke a little differently. This year they went for offensive but defensively responsible as opposed to shutting down the best players and contributing offensively.

[Sal from Garfield]

Grant: True, but what about another cup?

[ALEXNJD]

Congrats to Marty,nobody does it better.The reason why Queen from Rags got less votes cause besides Rang. fans nobody else voted for him. Not to many people know who he is and if you ask anybody to name a few goaltenders, all of us know very well whos names come in mind right away... Anyways glad Marty got it, now the only one thing is left is win the cup!

[Jon]

Well Deserved!!!!!!!

[mikeP]

nice little comment that Marty made towards Lou in his acceptance speech, something along the lines that he expects Lou to come through and make a move to improve the team we have now. Lou, the ball is now in your court.

How could Marty win the Vezina but get bumped to the 2nd all-* team behind Nabokov ?

I still don't get how Johnny Madden, who turned out to be our 2nd line center, who had a career offensive year, and one of his best overall seasons, got beat out by Pavel Datsyuk. I would have thought the PD and Zetterberg would have split their vote more evenly, because those two played on the same line for most of the season. Why didn't the writers nominate Holmstrom instead of Madden and have the entire Detroit top line for the Selke ? C'mon, what's with the bias against NJ!!

[mikeP]

nice little comment that Marty made towards Lou in his acceptance speech, something along the lines that he expects Lou to come through and make a move to improve the team we have now. Lou, the ball is now in your court.

How could Marty win the Vezina but get bumped to the 2nd all-* team behind Nabokov ?

I still don't get how Johnny Madden, who turned out to be our 2nd line center, who had a career offensive year, and one of his best overall seasons, got beat out by Pavel Datsyuk. I would have thought the PD and Zetterberg would have split their vote more evenly, because those two played on the same line for most of the season. Why didn't the writers nominate Holmstrom instead of Madden and have the entire Detroit top line for the Selke ? C'mon, what's with the bias against NJ!!

[Zavior]

Congrats to Marty on his 4th Vezina, I also liked the comment he made directed toward Lou which was that he expected to make some changes to really make this team a stanley cup contender again. I know Lou must have been boiling inside when Marty said that. But he's right!

The ball is most defenitly now in Lou's court, so let's see if he slamdunks it or trips over his laces as he has done since the lockout.

Zavior

[TG]

Matt M: As I noted above, Brodeur was fifth in the MVP voting. Lidstrom was fourth.

Also, the Vezina is voted by the GMs and the all-star teams are voted by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. That explains how Brodeur could win the Vezina and be the second-team goalie.

[Segundo]

I love the fact that Marty called out Lamoriello at the awards ceremony. Even he realizes that Lou's has to stop striking out in FA and the Draft.

[Parros]

If these awards included the playoffs, Marty McDouschebag would not have won. To his credit though, he had a fantastic regular season and was the only reason you guys even made the playoffs. So at end of the day he certainly deserved it and deserves being touted as one of the best ever.

Anyway - after watching the finals I think its clear both the Rangers and the Devils need to get much better if they plan on winning another cup.

[mikeP]

Parros, why are you still trolling here ? Don't you have a Rangers forum that you can post on where you can complain about the Devils?

[mikeP]

Parros, why are you still trolling here ? Don't you have a Rangers forum that you can post on where you can complain about the Devils?

[Vishal]

TG, have you heard anything on the Blake Wheeler front from NJ? Andy Strickland says we have the inside track on him signing here.

[95Crash]

Nice to see the GMs recognize what Brodeur did this year with very little support around him -- offense and defense.

[Omar Little]

Why do you folks think that Brodeur called Lou out or upset him? I bet that Lou has spoken with Marty more than once since the end of the season and said that he plans to make some changes during the offseason. He may even have mentioned some specific targets. Lou is a lot more open with guys like Brodeur than he is with the media.

[Parros]

I went spray tanning with Avery today and after that we spent the evening gossiping and painting our finger nails tee hee!

[Zavior]

Reports our of Phoenix indicate that RW Radim Vrbata may test the open market before thinking of re-signing with the Coyotes, so the Devils will have a shot at making him an offer. He put up his best offensive points last year (27g 29a 56p) he is looking to triple his
1.2m salary from last season.

A friend of mines who attended the NHL awards show said he asked Marty Brodeur outside the venue, which free agent Marty would like
to have on the team, to which Marty said Hossa "with a smile".

Anyways can't wait until the Draft Party next Friday, it should be interesting to see if Lou is as active as we all are hoping he will be. Anyone else from here attending? TG will you be there?

Zavior

[Matt M.]

Sorry for missing that line about Brodeur finishing fifth in Hart Voting. My attention was drawn to the last line, and I tracked back to read the last section.

As for Ovechkin being left off a ballot, It could be that the PHWA member jumped the gun thinking that Washington would not make the playoffs. I am not fully sure if the voting system allows for this , but it is the only way that I can think of that makes sense, short of a voter leaving Ovechkin off out of dislike for the Capital like was famously done to Ted Williams in the 1941 American League MVP voting.

I read in Brodeur's book that he filled out his Pearson ballot a few days short of the season's end, and he selected Jagr instead of Thornton.

[Pearl Jammed(RJ Arditti)]

i still say i am afraid of giving Vrbata a big salary because he had his best season this season... and sucked pretty much every other season. He only had a good one because he was playing with former #1 overall Pick in 2006 Peter Mueller... we have no one like that here to get him the puck so i think he would be a waste of money without that slick passing C the teams needs so badly

[Xander Crews]

I agree 300% Pearl... but im always worried about these players for suddenly have one great year (Ribero is another this past year). It just make me worried on was it their breakout year or just a fluke?