B/R Experts' NHL Awards for the 2014-15 Season

With the NHL regular season completed, it's time to hand out individual hardware.

B/R assembled its hockey conclave to pick the award winners from the 2014-15 regular season. Some of the decisions were easy, but others were very difficult. For instance, there are about seven or eight worthy winners of the Norris Trophy and Jack Adams Award.

Our panel of experts did the voting to decide the winners:

• Jonathan Willis
• Adrian Dater
• Steve Macfarlane
• Allan Mitchell 
• Lyle Richardson
• Carol Schram
• Dave Lozo

Our experts voted for B/R's award winners. Once a vote is cast for a player, it's assigned a value—five points for the top player in the rankings, four points for the second spot and three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. The totals are then added up to create the results.

News and statistics are courtesy of NHL.com, War-On-Ice.com and BehindTheNet.ca.

Vezina Trophy: Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens

Francois Lacasse/Getty Images

Why he wins: This was an easy call, as our seven-person panel unanimously chose Price for the award. He led the league in every major goaltending category; Price won 44 games, had nine shutouts (tied with Braden Holtby and just one behind Marc-Andre Fleury), a 1.96 goals-against average and .933 save percentage.

This was a tight race between Price and Pekka Rinne at the halfway point, but Price posted a .939 save percentage in 30 starts after the All-Star break to separate himself from the field.

Final voting: Carey Price (35), Devan Dubnyk (26), Pekka Rinne (17), Braden Holtby (11), Cory Schneider (10), Steve Mason (6)

Jack Adams Award: Bob Hartley, Calgary Flames

Gerry Thomas/Getty Images

Why he wins: Bob Hartley claims this award mostly because he's the coach of the team we all thought would be really bad this season, and that team reached the playoffs. Sure, everything about the Flames' underlying numbers says they are still a bad team that received massive amounts of luck, but our group felt Hartley was the creator of said luck.

Hartley coached the Flames to a playoff berth for the first time since 2008-09. One of the biggest reasons the Flames are in the postseason is their 24 points earned in games when trailing after two periods, second most in the league. 

Final voting: Bob Hartley (25), Barry Trotz (17), Peter Laviolette (16), Alain Vigneault (15), Paul Maurice (15), Dave Cameron (8), Mike Yeo (4), Willie Desjardins (3), Jack Capuano (1)

Norris Trophy: P.K. Subban, Montreal Canadiens

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Why he wins: P.K. Subban narrowly edged Erik Karlsson for this fictional Norris Trophy, despite only earning two first-place votes. The field is as even as it's been in a long time, but Subban is a worthy winner by virtue of his 15 goals and 60 points, along with his fantastic possession numbers against elite competition.

Subban credits coach Michel Therrien and GM Marc Bergevin for what many consider his best NHL season.

"Michel and the coaching staff and especially [general manager Marc Bergevin], they've helped me so much," Subban said Sunday, per Arpon Basu of NHL.com. "The amount of meetings that I've had with them, and it's strictly about making me a better player. For people that say, 'He's not helping P.K.,' I'm saying it's his job to win, so obviously he wants to see me do well. Every coach has a different style and his is different from everybody else's. But that doesn't mean that it's bad.

"This is the best hockey that I'm playing in my career and he's a big part of it and so is [Bergevin]."

Five of our seven voters chose different defensemen for first on their ballots, and that is very likely representative of how the real voting will go.

Final voting: P.K. Subban (22), Erik Karlsson (20), Shea Weber (14), Kris Letang (13), Drew Doughty (12), Mark Giordano (8), Roman Josi (8), Anton Stralman (4), Duncan Keith (2), John Carlson (1), T.J. Brodie (1)

Calder Trophy: Johnny Gaudreau, Calgary Flames

Gerry Thomas/Getty Images

Why he wins: Much like the Norris race, the Calder voters appeared to be torn between Johnny Gaudreau and Aaron Ekblad, but it's the diminutive Flame who wins our award. Gaudreau tied with Mark Stone for the rookie lead in points (64), and his 24 goals are an impressive first-year total. The past three Calder winners all led the league in points among rookies.

"Here's a young player that had to make the transition from a college schedule to an NHL schedule," coach Bob Hartley told Randy Miller of NJ.com. "There's quite a difference, but I think credit to him for (being) a small-size player. He's done quite well. He's had a few bumps in the road, but at the same time he's always found a way to get back in gear and be productive. You look at Johnny Gaudreau's two-way game, it's pretty impressive also."

Gaudreau hit a typical rookie midseason lull with two goals in 23 games between January and February. But he has finished strong with nine goals and 10 assists in his final 18 games. 

Final voting: Johnny Gaudreau (31), Aaron Ekblad (27), Filip Forsberg (19), Mark Stone (15), John Klingberg (11), Kevin Hayes (1)

Selke Trophy: Patrice Bergeron, C, Boston Bruins

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Why he wins: Patrice Bergeron was a unanimous selection by virtue of the league's third-best Fenwick (57.3 percent), despite taking about 38 percent of his faceoffs in the defensive zone. That's the second most among forwards with at least 1,000 minutes at five-on-five. 

Even with difficult defensive assignments, Bergeron's 34 points at five-on-five rank him in the top 50 among forwards. He is also the best in the league at faceoffs, winning 60 percent of his 1,951 draws.

Final voting: Patrice Bergeron (35), Jonathan Toews (19), Anze Kopitar (17), David Backes (7), Pavel Datsyuk (7), Ryan O'Reilly (4), Max Pacioretty (3), Nicklas Backstrom (3), Patrik Elias (3), Ondrej Palat (2), Sidney Crosby (2), Joe Thornton (1), Joe Pavelski (1), Joel Ward (1)

Hart Trophy: Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens

Eliot J. Schechter/Getty Images

Why he wins: Nobody meant more to a team's success than Price, which is why he received all but one first-place vote in our poll. An argument can be made that based on award criteria, a goaltender should win every year, much the way a quarterback almost always wins MVP in the NFL, but Price really stood out in 2014-15.

"He's been unbelievable, I don't know what to say," center Tomas Plekanec said Friday, per Basu. "He's the biggest reason we are where we are. Hopefully we can help him out a little bit more than we did so far."

The Habs are 20th in goals, 21st in shots allowed per game and 20th in Fenwick. Despite being in the bottom third of the league in of all those categories, the Canadiens finished with the league's second-best record. Among goaltenders to make at least 60 starts, the next closest goaltender to Price (.933) in save percentage is Cory Schneider (.925).

It takes a historic year for a goaltender to win the Hart, and Price had just that. 

Final voting: Carey Price (33), Alexander Ovechkin (28), John Tavares (19), Devan Dubnyk (14), Sidney Crosby (6), Rick Nash (2), Jonathan Toews (1), Jiri Hudler (1), Jamie Benn (1)