MONTREAL\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The National Hockey League announced on\u00a0Friday\u00a0that the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) has selected Montreal Canadiens forward Nick Suzuki as\u00a0the winner\u00a0of\u00a0the Frank J. Selke Trophy for the 2025-26\u00a0season.<\/p>\n
Suzuki tallied\u00a0101\u00a0points (29G,\u00a072A) in 82 games\u00a0with the Canadiens\u00a0this\u00a0season\u00a0,\u00a0leading the team in points, differential (+37), power play points (43)\u00a0and average ice time among forwards (20:49).\u00a0The London, ON, native\u00a0ranked\u00a0sixth\u00a0in the NHL in points.<\/p>\n
Suzuki produced numbers that\u00a0placed him among the NHL\u2019s elite despite facing the opposition\u2019s best players on a nightly basis. The 26-year-old centerman\u00a0showcased\u00a0his excellence in the defensive aspects of the game by posting a plus-37\u00a0differential, ranking\u00a0fifth\u00a0among\u00a0forwards and 10th among\u00a0all NHL\u00a0players.\u00a0Suzuki, who reached the 100-point plateau and the 70-assist mark for the first time in his career,\u00a0enjoyed the third-most productive season ever by a centerman in the team\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Suzuki also excelled in the faceoff circle, finishing the regular season with a faceoff win percentage above 50% for a\u00a0third\u00a0straight year (50.4%). Among\u00a0all NHL centers who\u00a0maintained\u00a0a FOW% of 50% and above,\u00a0Suzuki ranked second in points.<\/p>\n
The Frank J. Selke\u00a0Trophy\u00a0is\u00a0awarded\u00a0to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.\u00a0The winner is selected by a poll among the 32\u00a0chapters\u00a0of the PHWA at the end of the regular season.\u00a0The trophy was named after Frank J. Selke, former general manager of the Toronto Maple\u00a0Leafs\u00a0and\u00a0Canadiens, and was\u00a0first awarded after the 1977-78 season.<\/p>\n
Suzuki joins forwards Bob Gainey\u00a0(1978, 1979, 1980, 1981) and Guy Carbonneau (1988, 1989, 1992) as the only Canadiens players to have been awarded the Frank J. Selke Trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The National Hockey League announced on\u00a0Friday\u00a0that the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) has selected Montreal Canadiens forward Nick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-686420","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\/686420","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=686420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}