NHL Midseason Award Watch: The Calder Trophy Logjam and Connor McDavid's Hart

The 2016-17 NHL season will reach its midpoint when play concludes Tuesday. By now, we have a pretty good idea of the good teams (Pittsburgh, Minnesota), the bad teams (Colorado, Arizona) and those other teams we can't figure out (Tampa Bay, Nashville).

The awards are hard to figure out too. Almost every piece of NHL hardware is up for grabs. As recently as two weeks ago, one prominent hockey mind was ready to award the Calder Trophy to Matt Murray but now that same leading intellectual is ready to go in a different direction. It's possible that Murray won't even be a finalist in this very intelligent piece of analysis.

Just kidding about the smart stuff. I'm an idiot.

It's time to give away some mid-season hardware. Let's do this.

JACK ADAMS AWARD

Finalists: John Tortorella (Columbus Blue Jackets), Todd McLellan (Edmonton Oilers), Mike Babcock (Toronto Maple Leafs)

Winner: McLellan

I know, I know. Tortorella is going to win this unless the Blue Jackets collapse so badly in the second half that they miss the playoffs. The PHWA doesn't vote on this award, so it's not as though my measly ballot will have an effect. But hear me out: This is our chance to correct a problem with this award in recent years.

Here are the past three winners of the Jack Adams along with their team's raw Fenwick and PDO that season:

Barry Trotz, Washington Capitals (51.4/102.8)

Bob Hartley, Calgary Flames (45.8/101.0)

Patrick Roy, Colorado Avalanche (46.7, 101.8)

Trotz was given the award partly because of his team's dominance in the regular season (120 points) and partly because he had never won during his nearly two decades of outstanding coaching. So while he won the award because his team exceeded expectations on the strength of a wildly high PDO, it's not as though Trotz is a bad coach or the Capitals were a bad team.

That brings us to Hartley and Roy, two coaches no longer employed. Hartley was fired and Roy quit, although it's easy to make a convincing case the Avalanche didn't mind losing Roy one bit. These firings always lead to people wondering how coaches get fired after winning a Jack Adams so recently. Usually, it's because the award was given to the luckiest coach that season, not the one who did the best job. If your team's PDO is above 101 and your possession numbers are below 47 percent, you've gotten lucky as hell. You had more bounces than a twerking video.

At the halfway mark, the Blue Jackets are at 50.6/102.7. If you want to make a case for Bruce Boudreau, the Wild are at 48.5/103.2. There's still a ways to go, and no one is saying Boudreau is a bad coach, but the trap is again being set for Jack Adams votes to go to coaches who are benefiting from a lot of luck.

McLellan probably won't even be a finalist, but he has the Oilers in a playoff spot despite a roster that isn't very good outside of a handful of players. They're on pace for 96 points, which would be a 26-point turnaround. Yes, a lot of it has to do with Connor McDavid, but McLellan has been just as important in Edmonton as Babcock in Toronto, who is my No. 2 on this list.

The Oilers are fifth in raw Fenwick (51.8) with an almost perfectly level 100.1 PDO.

Yes, there's more to determining the best coach than just PDO, and you can't go wrong voting Babcock, either. But maybe let's avoid a conversation in 2018 about how Tortorella was fired a year after winning a Jack Adams and how no one understands why.

SELKE TROPHY

Finalists: Patrice Bergeron (Boston Bruins), Brad Marchand (Boston Bruins), Anze Kopitar (Los Angeles Kings)

Winner: Bergeron

I hate this award. How can anyone expect to say with complete authority that one person from a position group is the best at doing a specific thing within that job without watching literally everyone else in the same position group? Thirty teams, 82 games, hundreds of forwards, thousands of minutes played. If you wanted to vote on this award properly, you'd have to dedicate six months exclusively to watching every team's games.

Bergeron is in the midst of his worst offensive season ever, but he's still crushing opponents at 5-on-5. But so are regular linemates Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, so how do you separate them? Can we give the Selke to all three? Bergeron's numbers without Marchand are terrible, but that's in about the same amount of minutes as an episode of Veep. Marchand has been consistently excellent no matter his linemates.

Then there's Kopitar, who has been rock-solid once again. Maybe he wins it if the eastern voters split their Selke votes between the Bruins.

I plan on listening to arguments for these three and anyone else before I actually vote. Please @ me.

CALDER TROPHY

Finalists: Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs), Patrik Laine (Winnipeg Jets), Matt Murray (Pittsburgh Penguins)

Winner: Laine

I'm pretty sure I'll be switching to Matthews the next time we do this, but as of now, it's Laine's award by a hair. And Murray is only about two hairs back of Laine.

This is the most log-jammed award in a group of log-jammed awards. Beyond the three finalists, there's the Leafs' Mitch Marner and William Nylander; the Blue Jackets have Zach Werenski; Anthony Mantha has arrived in Detroit and has 19 points in 25 games, and Matthew Tkachuk would have a better case if he'd look into staying out of the penalty box.

One thing working in Matthews' favor: Laine was rocked over the weekend and could miss significant time with a concussion.

One thing working against Matthews: Marner and Nylander may steal votes and open the door for Laine or someone else to win.

For Murray to win, he needs to get back from his lower-body injury ASAP and maintain a .930-ish save percentage over at least 45 games. If Marc-Andre Fleury plays well over the second half, it may be impossible to close ground on Matthews and Laine.

NORRIS TROPHY

Finalists: Brent Burns (San Jose Sharks), Victor Hedman (Tampa Bay Lightning), Shea Weber (Montreal Canadiens)

Winner: Burns

This is the one award that isn't up for debate.

Burns is crushing it possession-wise (53.3 percent), and leads the league in points (39) and goals (15) by a defenseman. As much as everyone wants to bestow a lifetime achievement Norris on Weber—much like the one Drew Doughty received last year—this isn't the season to do it.

When Erik Karlsson was robbed last season, 26 of his 82 points (31.7 percent) occurred on the power play. If you were desperately looking for a reason to give Doughty the award, you could tell yourself that Karlsson was padding his numbers on the power play while avoiding the penalty kill.

Burns has 11 of his 39 points (28.2 percent) on the power play. He averages nearly two minutes per game on the penalty kill, so you'll have to find another avenue for stealing the Norris from Burns and giving it to Weber, who has 14 of 26 points (53.8 percent) on the power play.

Side note: What has Guy Boucher done to Karlsson in his first season coaching Ottawa? If his current shot totals hold over the rest of the season, Karlsson over the past four seasons will have gone from 257 to 292 to 248 to a mere 191 shots this season. Why does every coach in the NHL act like Edward Norton in Fight Club and try to destroy something beautiful? Hockey is the only sport where coaches and management decide a team's best player is the reason why the team is bad.

VEZINA TROPHY

Finalists: Devan Dubnyk (Minnesota Wild), Sergei Bobrovsky (Columbus Blue Jackets), Braden Holtby (Washington Capitals)

Winner: Dubnyk

It's not a coincidence that goaltenders for the teams with the three highest PDOs are the top three in save percentage. Dubnyk is the only goaltender whose team is in the red when it comes to unblocked shot attempts, and his save percentage is eight points better than the next closest goaltender, so he has a lock on the Vezina right now.

But of my three finalists (and we can include Carey Price, Tuukka Rask and Corey Crawford because they're in the mix too), Dubnyk is the one that seems most likely to fall off in the second half. He has a .917 career save percentage, so maintaining a .939 for a full season will be difficult. He had a .936 save percentage for the Wild for two seasons, but that was in 39 games.

I like Holtby to rise to the top over the second half.

HART TROPHY

Finalists: Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers), Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins), Devan Dubnyk (Minnesota Wild)

Winner: McDavid

I understand the argument for any of these three. Dubnyk is making a team that gets consistently out-attempted look like a world beater and Crosby is, well, Crosby and averaging more points per game than McDavid.

But if you want to use either tried and true MVP argument, you keep coming back to McDavid. No one is more valuable to his team than McDavid, and a case can be made that he's been as good as Crosby, if not better, this season. You can argue the value thing for Dubnyk and the overall quality of player thing for Crosby, but I don't think you can do both for each guy like you can for McDavid.

Again, I don't remember the last time the Hart race was so hotly contested. Between now and April, it's possible Bobrovsky, Patrick Kane, Vladimir Tarasenko or even Matthews can push their way into the conversation.

And by that, I mean real conversation. Not that "conversation" people use when they want to name someone that has zero chance at winning an award. "Eric Staal, with 52 points in 70 games, is in the MVP conversation." No, he's not. Stop doing that. In all sports. No one is having a conversation that lasts that long.

This story should be in the conversation for the Pulitzer.

Want to read more stories like this from VICE Sports? Subscribe to our daily newsletter.