This Week in New York Rangers Hockey (Awards Edition)

The Rangers made the playoffs. Barely. That’s four years in a row, though. After 81 games, the one thing we’ve learned about them is that they’re inconsistent. With the season on the line, they can play like they did in Boston or like they did vs. Montreal and Philadelphia. It’s anyone’s guess which team shows up for the post-season.

The only consistency they’ve had all season is on their special teams play—consistently good on the penalty kill and consistently bad on the power play. With the regular season just about wrapped up, here are some awards for the year:

The Nick Fotiu Award (for overachieving): Ryan Callahan

The Bill Fairburn Award (for knowing his role and doing his job better than anybody else): Blair Betts

The Esa Tikkanen Award (for annoying the crap out of the opposition): Sean Avery

The Marcel Dionne Award (for winding up a hall-of-fame career with the Rangers and having a decent, nothing-special season): Markus Naslund

The Marek Malik Award (for being the worst defenseman on the team): Wade Redden

The Ulf Nilsson Award (for being Swedish): Fredrik Sjostrom

The Lou Fontinato Award (for best fighter): Colton Orr

The Gump Worsley Award (for funniest interview): Scott Gomez

The Dave Maloney Award (for toughest defenseman): Paul Mara

The Don Maloney Award (for rookie of the year): Lauri Korpikoski

The Sylvain Lefebvre Award (for overpaid, balding defenseman): Michal Rozsival

The Rod Seiling Award (for steady, not spectacular defenseman with some offensive talent): Dan Girardi

The Jeff Toms Award (for being taller than 6′ 4″): Nik Antropov

The Brad Park Award (for being best overall defenseman): Marc Staal

The Alex Kovalev Award (for being a complete enigma): Nik Zherdev

The Brian Skrudland Award (for coming to the Rangers supposedly for grit and to teach the team how to win): Chris Drury

The Mike York Award (for being a homegrown fan favorite): Brandon Dubinsky

The Carol Vadnais Award (for being a defenseman who was traded to the Rangers during the season): Derek Morris

The Todd Harvey Award (for having to say “Remember when he was the heart and soul of the team for about three weeks?” about him): Aaron Voros

The Eddie Giacomin/Gilles Villemure Award (for being the two goalies on the team): Henrik Lundqvist and Steve Valiquette