Breaking Down the Resumes for the 2016 NHL Awards Nominees

The NHL will hold its version of the Oscars on June 22. There will be tuxedos, red carpets and corny jokes from an emcee, all in the glitz of Las Vegas (aka "Hockeytown").

We can't kid about anything NHL-related being in Sin City anymore because it really is a hockey city now—or at least all signs point that way. The league hasn't officially awarded a 31st team to Vegas, but it's in the cards, according to ESPN.com's Scott Burnside. Sorry.

The usual suspects are up for the big awards again as well as a few new entries. The biggest award, the Hart Trophy, will be dished out last. Will it go to Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane or Jamie Benn?

We'll break down the resumes of each candidate and give a pick at the end as to who should win. On with the slideshow.

Vezina Trophy (Top Goaltender): Ben Bishop, Jonathan Quick, Braden Holtby

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Ben Bishop, Tampa Bay Lightning

He led the league with a 2.06 goals-against average (a career best) and had a .926 save percentage. Unfortunately, he got hurt in the first game of the Eastern Conference Final, and the Lightning couldn't recover. Bishop also set a career best with six shutouts, second in the league. He was also a Vezina finalist in the 2013-14 season.

Braden Holtby, Washington Capitals

It was a mammoth season for Holtby, and he's the favorite to win. He tied Martin Brodeur's all-time NHL record with 48 wins. He finished fifth in GAA (2.20) and was eighth in save percentage (.922). The victory number and tying of Brodeur's record are the attention-getting aspects of Holtby's season. He and the Capitals fell short of the Cup again, but voting for awards is done before the start of the postseason.

Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings

He played the most minutes of any goalie (4,034), and his 40 wins were second in the league to Holtby's. Some critics call his save percentage (.918) ordinary, and his mechanics sometimes come under question. He's a winner, though, with two Stanley Cups to his credit. This is Quick's second time as a finalist. He finished second in 2011-12.

Who should win: Braden Holtby

Bishop's save percentage and GAA are better, but Holtby posted 13 more victories while still maintaining fine numbers.

Anytime a guy ties an NHL record, it's worth an award.

Calder Trophy (Top Rookie): Shayne Gostisbehere, Connor McDavid, Artemi Panarin

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Shayne Gostisbehere, Philadelphia Flyers

The "Ghost Bear" had quite the surprise season for the Flyers, scoring the most goals (17) as a rookie defenseman since Dion Phaneuf scored 20 for Calgary in 2005-06. He led all rookie D-men in points (46) and power-play points (22). He had a 15-game point streak and scored four overtime goals. How was he defensively? Not bad at all with a respectable plus-eight rating and 50.1 Corsi percentage.

Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers

A broken clavicle limited the highly touted 18-year-old (now 19) to just 45 games. Yet he still put up 48 points (1.07 per game, third among all players with 40 or more games). As the Edmonton Journal's Robert Tychkowski pointed out, McDavid was named the NHL's Rookie of the Month in "three of a possible six months." No other rookie won it more than once, and McDavid missed more than two months with the injury. After the injury, he put up 36 points in 32 games.

Artemi Panarin, Chicago Blackhawks

He played 80 games and posted 77 points (30 goals) while playing on a line with Patrick Kane. It's probably no coincidence that Kane had the best scoring season of his career playing with this kid. "Kid" is a relative term compared to McDavid, though. Panarin started the season as a 23-year-old after seven seasons in Russian pro hockey. He'll be 25 in October. He led all rookies in scoring, finishing ninth overall in the league. He had seven more points in seven playoff games.

Who should win: Artemi Panarin

This one is tough. I changed my mind a couple of times before finally going with the Bread Man.

If McDavid plays the full season, he almost certainly wins here. So why penalize him for getting hurt? It's not so much a penalization as the fact that Panarin also had a really, really good rookie season. He had 77 points in 80 games. McDavid averaged more points per game, but not by much.

Does the "older player" thing hurt Panarin a little? Yeah, a little. He's been a pro for a while now, albeit in another country. But does anyone want to compare the KHL to the NHL?

Getting 77 points in your first NHL season is quite a feat—at any age.

Jack Adams Award (Top Head Coach): Gerard Gallant, Lindy Ruff, Barry Trotz

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Gerard Gallant, Florida Panthers

With 47 wins and 103 points, the Panthers established franchise records under Gallant. While most pundits predicted an upswing for a Panthers team that had gradually rebuilt itself through high draft picks from previous years of misery, nobody picked Florida to exceed 100 points.

Gallant is considered one of the league's nice guys behind the bench, a steady-hand kind of person who doesn't rant and rave or seek publicity for himself. If he wins this award, he'll get some of that publicity he doesn't seek.

Lindy Ruff, Dallas Stars

As many successful seasons as Ruff had in Buffalo, by the start of this season, you wondered if Ruff was looking a bit outdated as a head coach. The Stars missed the playoffs the previous season, and plenty of questions surrounded the defense. Ruff, though, led Dallas to a division title in the one still considered the toughest in the league, the Central. It didn't work out for a Stanley Cup, but Dallas did win one round and figures to be strong again this coming year.

Barry Trotz, Washington Capitals

Trotz led Washington to a 120-point regular season, 11 more than the nearest team (Dallas). The Caps set a franchise record with 56 wins, and yet...the absence of what he and the Caps really wanted casts a shadow over their offseason. This is the third time Trotz has been a Jack Adams finalist. He has yet to win it.

Who should win: Barry Trotz

Let's face it: He should have won one of these by now.

Trotz has won with less talented teams in Nashville, and he's won with a Washington team that had more top-end talent. No, he hasn't won the big one yet, and he won't be known as a pantheon-type coach until he does. But he guided the Capitals to a sensational regular season, and under the guidelines of the time in which the competition is open, he deserves to win this year.

Norris Trophy (Top Defenseman): Erik Karlsson, Drew Doughty, Brent Burns

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Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators

It had been 20 years since an NHL defenseman scored 82 or more points in a season. Prior to Karlsson's 16-point, 66-assist year, no D-man had posted that many points in the NHL since Brian Leetch (85) and Ray Bourque (82) in 1995-96. Karlsson led the league in average ice time per game (28:58), and his relative Corsi percentage of plus-7.1 was among the league's best. Karlsson is the reigning Norris Trophy winner. The lone negative statistic: the minus-two rating he finished with on a non-playoff team.

Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings

His 58.9 Corsi percentage was tops among defensemen. In other words, Doughty plays with the puck on his stick—a lot. Did that translate into enough good stuff for the Kings in a bottom-line sense? Hard to argue against it. Doughty's 51 points were the most of his career since 2009-10 (59 points), and he was a plus-24. This is Doughty's third time as a finalist, but he has yet to win it.

Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks

He played all 82 games and put up 75 points (27 goals). He had another strong run in the playoffs, helping the Sharks to six games of the Stanley Cup Final before being bested by Pittsburgh. With his tattoo-parlor looks and hellbent-for-leather playing style, Burns has emerged as a favorite among the sport's more casual fans. Like Karlsson, though, he finished in negative territory in plus/minus (minus-five).

Who should win: Drew Doughty

Normally, I'm not one to be the analytics guy in a hockey argument. I believe too much of what really makes a player special can't be measured by the current set of analytics, so stuff like Corsi percentage doesn't make me as warm and fuzzy as it does others.

But if the true measure of why a defenseman should win this award is what he does at both ends of the ice, then Doughty deserves the Norris this year. Unlike Karlsson and Burns, he was heavily into plus territory statistically, and while his point total was about two-thirds of theirs, there is no questioning his offensive skill.

Doughty did it best at both ends this season. He deserves the trophy.

Selke Trophy (Defensive Forward): Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Kesler, Anze Kopitar

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Patrice Bergeron, Boston Bruins

If he wins, this would be Bergeron's fourth Selke, which would tie Montreal's Bob Gainey for the most in league history. Bergeron is just a great player at both ends. He posted 32 goals and 68 points in 80 games while winning 57.1 percent of his faceoffs. He did that in a very large sample size too, as Bergeron's 1,978 faceoffs taken were most in the league.

This the fifth straight season in which Bergeron has been a Selke finalist. The voting for this award, which is done by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, has occasionally come under criticism. In the case of Bergeron, though, the voters have gotten it right.

Ryan Kesler, Anaheim Ducks

He won faceoffs at a 58.5 percent clip, second in the league. He also had 21 goals and 53 points. This is the Michigan native's fourth time as a Selke finalist, and he won it in 2011. Kesler works every inch of the ice. He tied for the league lead in blocks among forwards (92).

Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings

Kopitar had 74 points (25 goals) in 81 games, finishing second in the league in plus/minus (plus-34). He was recently named the captain of the Kings, replacing Dustin Brown. He's a two-way leader in every sense and has a real shot at winning this award for the first time after being a runner-up in the past two seasons.

Who should win: Patrice Bergeron

Bergeron's 57.1 faceoff percentage was about four points higher than Kopitar's (53.5). Bergeron's point total was also higher than Kesler's. In a very close vote, Bergeron deserves it again.

Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player): Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, Jamie Benn

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Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks

With 106 points, Kane became the first U.S.-born player to win the NHL scoring title. With three Stanley Cups previously to his credit, his winning credentials had already been firmly established. In the playoffs? He scored just one goal in a seven-game first-round series loss to St. Louis, though he did add six assists. He was a minus-three in Game 7. Judging strictly by the regular season, though, Kane is your MVP.

Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins

With 58 points in 44 games after Jan. 1, Crosby led all NHL scorers. Overall, he finished third behind Kane and Benn. Crosby won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, and while he no doubt will have his supporters in the Hart vote, finishing 21 points behind the scoring champion likely won't be good enough for him to hold the trophy in his hand in Vegas.

Jamie Benn, Dallas Stars

The Stars winger played all 82 games and put up 89 points as the team captain. This is his first appearance as a Hart finalist, though he should have made it last year as the league's leading scorer with 87 points. He did two better than that this season despite the late-season loss of center linemate Tyler Seguin. He became the first Stars player to score 40 goals since 1993-94 (Mike Modano).

Who should win: Patrick Kane

With 17 more points than his nearest competitor, Kane deserves the award. He was the best player in the regular season—period.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him @Adater.