Award Heat… Or Not

If you weren’t watching the Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, you missed some… well… not very good comedy from Jay Mohr. In his defense (although the fact that he pointed this out is a bit of a point of contention), hockey jokes just aren’t really very funny. And having to come up with a full hour and a half of them can’t possibly have been easy. So that we can help out for next year, if you’ve got any great hockey-related jokes, leave them in the comments and we’ll see if we can get any of them incorporated next year.

So on the day of the NHL draft, who’s hot around the NHL? Let’s take a look at who’s hot and who’s not:

Hot:

1. Taylor Hall – It doesn’t get much hotter for the presumed #1 pick in the draft today. He’s an electric player that has skills that will impress virtually anyone who watches with an objective eye. And he’s headed to Edmonton. So frankly this is probably the last time he’ll be on this list as a “hot” player until he reaches free agency and heads to a… well, not Edmonton (or Toronto).

2. Henrik Sedin – He won the Hart Trophy. Did he deserve it? Probably not, but he won, so props to him. I’ve ranted before about the lameness of the fact that the winner of the Art Ross almost always ends up with the Hart Trophy as well, making the trophy effectively redundant. The one thing that is not debatable is that Sedin did have a very impressive season. And one that will (hopefully) not be replicated this year.

3. Jose Theodore – It’s his last gasp. His career is effectively over, and since the lockout he just hasn’t been the same goalie that won the Vezina and Hart Trophy in the same year. Nonetheless, he deserves his props, and this is my one and only chance to give it to him. Theodore won the Masterton Trophy on Wednesday night, and it was a well deserved win. Congratulations to him, and a fond farewell. Who’s not then?

1. Alexander Ovechkin – I had to take the opportunity to put him in this list, since it’s so very rare that he’s even pseudo-eligible. He won the Ted Lindsay Award, and well-done for him. But he lost the more coveted Hart Trophy, and remains the somewhat troubled soul with a large Stanley Cup shaped hole on his award shelf. Until he wins that Cup, he’s going to have a big “BUT” in his legacy.

2. Jay Mohr – God his comedy was awful. It was painfully bad, and almost made me change the channel, if I wasn’t so dedicated to bringing you all the best coverage possible over at Rink Royalty. They could bring somebody else in next year, and certainly it’s possible that they will, but whoever they bring in is likely to be a mediocre comedian with little to offer. Thanks Bettman (or whoever decides these things…)

3. Brian Burke – I considered putting the Maple Leafs as a franchise here on the list, but I’m saving them for later. With the draft today, Burke is a big loser, with effectively nothing to do. Unless he makes a trade into the first round, he literally won’t have anything to do at all during the draft today, instead waiting until later TOMORROW before he gets to make his first pick. For a team like Toronto in so much misery, that’s bad news.