NASHVILLE, Tennessee – It's hard to think back now to a year in which so many of the NHL's major awards felt like a foregone conclusion.

The league's MVP, as voted by both the NHL's players and the writers and broadcasters that cover it, would surely be Connor McDavid, who achieved scoring feats not seen since the 1990s.

The only question there seemed to be one of unanimity – who was the one person who dared say David Pastrňák deserved it more? And maybe if voting were conducted post-playoffs, Matthew Tkachuk might have made a better accounting for himself, but they still only count the regular season (in which Tkachuk was spectacular), so his heroic spring will go largely ignored by history.

Matty Beniers appeared all along to be the slam-dunk Calder winner, being perhaps the most rounded-ou