{"id":627231,"date":"2026-05-06T17:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/627231\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:20:08","slug":"cirelli-nelson-suzuki-named-selke-trophy-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/627231\/","title":{"rendered":"Cirelli, Nelson, Suzuki named Selke Trophy finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cirelli had 52 points (23 goals, 29 assists) in 71 games for the Tampa Bay Lighting last season and had a career-best plus-38 rating. The center led the team with 1,075 face-offs, winning 48.2 percent, and helped the Lightning finish second in the NHL with a plus-57 goal differential. He averaged 17:19 of ice time per game, including 2:38 short-handed, second on the team and best among Lightning forwards. The Lightning also took 55.7 percent of all shot attempts (SAT%) \u00a0when he was on the ice at 5-on-5.<\/p>\n<p>Cirelli helped the Lightning rank third on the power play in the regular season (82.6 percent) and finish second in the Atlantic Division with a 50-26-6 record. A finalist for the second straight season, Cirelli would be the first Lightning player to win the award.<\/p>\n<p>Nelson had 65 points (33 goals, 32 assists) and averaged 19:39 of ice time playing in 81 games for the Colorado Avalanche this season. The center had 10 power-play goals and nine game-winning goals and an SAT percentage of 57.2 while also contributing defensively. He won 50.4 percent of his face-offs, finishing fourth in the NHL in face-offs taken (1,459), and averaged 1:51 per game short-handed to help Colorado lead the League with an 84.6 mark on the penalty kill.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nelson helped the Avalanche win the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/nhl-presidents-trophy-winners-complete-list-287820790\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Presidents&#8217; Trophy<\/a> for having the best record in the NHL (55-16-11) as well as the William M. Jennings Trophy for allowing the fewest goals in the NHL (197 excluding shootout goals), and finish first with a plus-99 goal differential.<\/p>\n<p>A first-time finalist, he would be the first Avalanche player to win the award.<\/p>\n<p>Suzuki, who has not missed a game in his seven-season NHL career, led the Montreal Canadiens with an NHL career-best 101 points (29 goals, 72 assists) in 82 games, also topping the team in power-play points (43) and plus-minus rating (plus-37). The center was sixth in the NHL with 1,449 face-offs taken, winning 50.4 percent, and averaged 20:49 of ice time per game, tops among Montreal forwards.<\/p>\n<p>He helped Montreal finish third in the Atlantic Division with a 48-21-10 record and 106 points, their most wins and points since the 2014-15 season. Suzuki would be the first Canadiens player to win the award since Guy Carbonneau in 1991-92.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/aleksander-barkov-8477493\" title=\"Aleksander Barkov\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aleksander Barkov<\/a>\u00a0of the Florida Panthers has won the award each of the past two seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cirelli had 52 points (23 goals, 29 assists) in 71 games for the Tampa Bay Lighting last season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-627231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}