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The NHL won't begin formally announcing its award winners until 5 p.m. ET Friday (seriously NHL, what an awful time for that), but one award winner has already been leaked.
Your Norris Trophy winner as the league's best defenseman: P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens. That's according to the usually reliable Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet.
Confirmed word out of Montreal and NY is #Canadian P.K Subban will be announced during Cup final as the winner of #NHL 2013 Norris trophy.
— Nick Kypreos (@RealKyper) June 10, 2013
If that's indeed the case then Subban beats out Ryan Suter of the Wild and Kris Letang of the Penguins for the award, the first of Subban's young career.
Subban was late getting to the ice this season with a contract dispute causing him to miss the first couple of games as well as the abbreviated training camp. But Subban didn't look any worse for it as he came in and immediately picked up with the rest of the Canadiens. In 42 games he finished with 11 goals and 27 assists to tie with Letang for the most points among defensemen (though it should be noted Letang played only 35 games).
Just goes to show you how important scoring is for defensemen in the Norris vote. That's not to say Subban can't play in his own end, but pretty clearly this award was won on the strength of having 38 points and 11 goals -- one behind Mike Green for most among defensemen.
What's new is an award winner being leaked. That's something usually seen in the NBA, not often in the NHL. The already unorthodox awards revelations lose a little more luster with a leak like this.
