National Awards
By Fetch
It’s that time of year again. I am a week later than everyone else this year, mainly because I wanted to focus on the Frozen Four last week, but also because I had a pretty big assignment for school that I sadly had to do. Anyways, here are my national awards, as well as my All-American teams:
Player of the year – Matt Frattin, North Dakota
Like the Hobey race, it came down to Frattin and Miele. Each would have been worthy of winning this highly prestigious award, but in the end I went with Frattin because he led the nation in goals, and as good as Brad Malone and Evan Trupp are, I think Miele got to play with better players (though to be fair, they looked that good partially because of Miele) and so I gave Frattin some bonus points for that. I also had a hard time balancing the fact that Miele played in a more defensive league, but the CCHA was definitely not as good as the WCHA this year, especially after the top 3 teams. Hopefully when I get some time to look at more advanced stats this summer I’ll have a better answer for next year’s player of the year race.
Coach of the year – Mark Dennehy, Merrimack
It was a close race with Dennehy and Western Michigan’s Jeff Blashill, but I had to give it to Dennehy for one reason. Here are the conference finishes for Merrimack the past 5 years:
2010: 6th
2009: 9th (tied for last)
2008: last
2007: last
2006: last
And this year the Warriors finished 4th and ended up making the NCAA tournament. With Stephane Da Costa gone next year as well as Joe Barton and Joe Cucci the Warriors might backslide a bit next year, but they had a phenomenal year this year.
Rookie of the year – Jason Zucker, Denver
The race for rookie of the year was a great one this year. It came down to Zucker, CC’s Jaden Schwartz, Notre Dame’s TJ Tynan and Anders Lee and Lake State’s Kevin Kapalka for me. But I decided on Zucker because, although he had fewer points per game than TJ Tynan, the 8 assist difference wasn’t really a huge deal for me, and they were tied in goals. Zucker was also tied for second nationally among all players in game winning goals, and he almost led the WCHA in scoring as a Freshman. Although he was a second round pick by the Wild, Zucker didn’t come into college hockey with as much fanfare as some other players, such as Jaden Schwartz. But he produced from day one until the last day of Denver’s season, when he had the only goal in their loss to North Dakota.
My All-American teams are after the jump:
F: Matt Frattin, North Dakota
F: Andy Miele, Miami
F: Cam Atkinson, Boston College
D: Justin Schultz, Wisconsin
D: Jake Gardiner, Wisconsin
G: Aaron Dell, North Dakota
2nd team
F: Mike Connolly, Minnesota-Duluth
F: Reilly Smith, Miami
F: Paul Thompson, New Hampshire
D: Chay Genoway, North Dakota
D: Brian Dumoulin, Boston College
G: Shane Malodora, RIT
3rd team
F: Chase Polacek, RPI
F: Paul Zanette, Niagara
F: Jason Gregoire, North Dakota
D: Matt Donovan, Denver
D: Denny Urban, Robert Morris
G: Ryan Rondeau, Yale
All Rookie Team
F: Jason Zucker, Denver
F: Jaden Schwartz, Colorado College
F: TJ Tynan, Notre Dame
D: Justin Faulk, Minnesota-Duluth
D: Jon Merrill, Michigan
G: Sam Brittain, Denver