As the NHL regular season winds to a close, it’s time to hand out our picks for the awards this season. Injuries and league parity made for an interesting season and voting for the awards was no different. As far as we can see, a case can be made for at least three people for each award, and that will make the awards ceremony in late June very interesting. If we had a ballot, this is how we would cast it. Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player) Corey Perry, Anaheim Two-thirds of the way through the season, Perry wasn’t even on our radar when we did the Second Trimester Awards. But after carrying the underperforming Ducks on his shoulders for the last half of the season, there proved to be no other player as valuable in the entire league as Perry. Captain Ryan Getzlaf missed a month of the season, and All-Star goalie Jonas Hiller missed more than that at the most important time of the season, and during that time Perry elevated his game to a place he has never reached in his career. In 11 February games, Perry had 17 points; in 14 March games he had 15 goals and 21 points and was +9; in 5 April games he had 9 points and a +3 rating while averaging over 25 minutes of ice time. In the Ducks' 47 wins he had 63 points, and he had 35 points in the team’s 35 losses showing that he didn’t only show up in the wins. 10 of his 50 goals came when his team was trailing by one; 15 goals came with his team tied; 21 of his goals were in the third period; and only two were empty-netters meaning that his lofty total wasn’t cheap. Perry finished the season as the Rocket Richard winner as the league's only 50-goal scorer, and finished third with 98 points playing in all 82 games. Perry's 11 game winning goals were tied for the most in the NHL, and his average of 22:18 in ice time per game was second among forwards. But it was his second-half that really earned him league-wide recognition. If not for Perry, the Ducks wouldn’t be anywhere near the playoffs, let alone having home-ice advantage. Runners-up: Daniel Sedin, Vancouver; Tim Thomas, Boston; Martin St. Louis, Tampa Bay; Jonathan Toews, Chicago. Norris Trophy (Best Defenseman) Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit While he may not be leading blueliners in points (second with 62 points, tied for the fifth highest total in his career), Lidstrom is having a sensational year at the ripe age of 40-years-old. He has also been the backbone of a Wings team that was decimated by injuries once again, being the key ingredient to a team that won the Central Division for the tenth time in the last twelve seasons. The one knock on Lidstrom’s candidacy is a valid one: he has a -2 plus/minus. Only twice since 1980 has the Norris Trophy winner had a negative plus/minus: Rob Blake had a -3 rating in 1997-98, and Randy Carlyle was -16 in 1980-81. And while we will readily admit to being a bit homerish on this one, the field is wide open behind him. Runners-up: Keith Yandle, Phoenix; Shea Weber, Nashville; Lubomir Visnovsky, Anaheim; Zdeno Chara, Boston. Vezina Trophy (Best Goalie) Tim Thomas, Boston Thomas is the head of the class in what was a very strong season for goaltenders. Any other year, Luongo and Rinne could take home the hardware with their respective stats, but it is Thomas who wound up setting an NHL record with a .938 save percentage, just ahead of Dominik Hasek's .9366 in 1998-99. On top of that, Thomas also led the league with a 2.00 goals against average while posting nine shutouts (2nd in the NHL). What may keep Thomas for winning unanimously is that he has only played in 57 games, while other contenders played close to 70. But Thomas’ efforts should not be diminished because he had a backup goalie who was capable of playing a larger amount of games than most backups in order to keep the former Vezina winner healthy and rested. While his 35 wins ranks tied for ninth, it is only three behind the leaders who have 38. The award is for the best goalie of the season, and there should be little doubt that Thomas was the best this year. Runners-up: Roberto Luongo, Vancouver; Pekka Rinne, Nashville; Carey Price, Montreal; Henrik Lundqvist, NY Rangers. Calder Trophy (Best Rookie) Jeff Skinner, Carolina This is by far the hardest award to hand out, given the close nature of the rookie scoring race, and the back-and-forth that took place atop the rookie rankings between Couture and Skinner in particular. And in a race that is so close to call, you have to find the factors that sway things one way or another. Couture was originally the goal-scoring leader, swaying the award in his favor, but Skinner closed the gap to one as the season ended. Couture had +18 in relation to Skinner’s +3, but Couture had the benefit of playing on a team that made the Conference Finals last year, while Skinner’s team wasn’t a playoff team. While Couture is a far superior faceoff man, and has more game-winning goals, Skinner’s 7-point lead as the rookie scoring leader (31-32-63) is really impressive, especially for an 18-year-old. And many want to throw away this fact: Couture played 25 games last year plus 15 in the playoffs. This makes Skinner more impressive. Runners-up: Logan Couture, San Jose; Corey Crawford, Chicago; Michael Grabner, NY Islanders; John Carlson, Washington. Selke Trophy (Best Defensive Forward) Jonathan Toews, Chicago From reading around the net, it appears that Kesler is poised to take home this award, but the stats show that Toews should be the winner. Toews is second in the NHL with 93 takeaways, and only has 30 giveaways (Joe Thornton leads with 114 takeaways but has 98 giveaways). Toews also lead the league by a wide margin with 937 faceoff wins (Kesler is second with 859), with a fantastic 56.7% success rate (marginally lower than Kesler). Toews ranks ninth among forwards in plus/minus at +25, while Kesler was a +24. One thing people forget to consider is that Kesler was not the main shut-down center on his team this year. Prior to his injury last month, that guy in Vancouver was Manny Malhotra. Toews routinely takes his shifts against the top offensive line on the opposing team, and that sways the vote here in the Chicago captain’s favor. Runners-up: Ryan Kesler, Vancouver; Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit; Patrice Bergeron, Boston; Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles. Jack Adams (Best Coach) Dan Bylsma, Pittsburgh A lot of candidates are worthy of taking home the hardware in this category, but none more so than the Pittsburgh bench boss. Bylsma had to deal with significant injuries, not only to former Art Ross and Conn Smythe winner Evgeni Malkin (only 43 games played, only 37 points), but also first-half MVP Sidney Crosby (41 games played). Since Crosby's season-ending concussion, Bylsma led the patch-work Penguins to a 24-13-5 record while working in new pieces acquired at, or around, the trade deadline (James Neal, Alex Goligoski, Alexei Kovalev), and it resulted in a 106 point season, ending up tied with Philadelphia for most points in the division but ultimately leading to a fourth-place finish and home ice in at least the first round. Without Bylsma, this team would likely have been fighting for eighth. Runners-up: Dave Tippett, Phoenix; Guy Boucher, Tampa Bay; Bruce Boudreau, Washington; Barry Trotz, Nashville. Nick is RealGM's NHL Feature Writer. You can reach him by email [email protected] or on twitter @NickObergan