The NHL reached the three-quarter mark of its season this past weekend. Now, with the NHL Trade Deadline in the rear-view mirror, NHL.com looks at some of the biggest storylines -- and award winners -- that have developed across the first 900-plus games of the 1,230-game regular season.
At the quarter-mark of the 2011-12 NHL season, we noted that Lightning right wing Martin St. Louis, winner of the last two Lady Byng trophies, still was a candidate to complete the hat trick this June with a third. The Byng, which rewards the player who best displays "skillful and gentlemanly play," has a tendency to see repeat winners -- prior to St. Louis, Pavel Datsyuk took home the award four straight times and Rangers center Frank Boucher once won the award seven times in a span of eight seasons -- which means predicting St. Louis to do it again would be far from unreasonable.
In fact, St. Louis' numbers to this point -- 22 goals, 36 assists, a plus-2 rating and 16 penalty minutes in 57 games -- would merit his inclusion as a Lady Byng finalist. But much like both of our earlier predictions, we still don't think St. Louis will be taking home the hardware.
However, after tabbing Stars left wing Loui Eriksson to ride last year's nomination for the Byng and another solid season to his first trophy in our previous predictions, we're shifting gears slightly. Eriksson remains in the mix, but with several glittering resumes to compare at this point in the season, Islanders left wing Matt Moulson's all-round offensive game and another impressive season have him in line to take the Lady Byng in 2012.
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Sightline Payments Kirk Sanford
videopoker
Subject: Trophy Tracker: Moulson favorite for Lady Byng 
Tue Feb 28, 2012 8:28 pm