Pens' Staal A Finalist For Selke Trophy As League's Best Defensive Forward

Pittsburgh Penguins' Head Coach Dan Bylsma suggested yesterday that a couple of players on his team were good enough to win the Franke J. Selke trophy awarded annually to the league's best defenisve forward.

Of course, Blysma was referring to both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin when he made those remarks, but the members of the NHL Professional Hockey Writers' Association - who determine the finalists for the Selke award --obviously disagree with the Pittsburgh coach.

Fortunately for Bylsma, he can still look down his bench and find one of the three nominees.

21-year old Pens' center Jordan Staal was announced as one of the three finalists for the Selke Trophy today.

To go with 49 points this year on 21 goals and 28 assists, Staal finished the year with a career-high plus 19 rating, despite playing most of the season against the oppositions' top offensive players.

Only one Penguin has ever won the Selke trophy, and that was nearly 15 years ago when Ron Francis won it after the 1994/1995 season.

Staal has strong competition for the award in both Detroit Red Wings' Center Pavel Datsyuk and Vancouver Canucks forward Ryan Kessler.

Datsyuk has won the award 2 years running and once again led the league in takeaways this year.

Unlike in prior seasons, though, Datsyuk may not be quite on the radar as much, beacuse he missed a dozen games due to injury, and had an offensive season that was significantly below his standards.

Kessler was a finalist for the award last year and, in a strong year for him offensively, put up as many points as Datsyuk did -- 70.

In what might be the most meaningful statistic for those dolling out the Selke, however, Kessler was only a +1 on the season.

It's going to be interesting to see who wins the trophy this year. While everyone in Penguin Nation is pulling for Staal, first time finalists for the award typically don't win. The writers generally like to see sustained defensive excellence before voting on someone to win the Selke.

That said, Staal has been generally regarded as a strong defensive forward since he came into the league. And, unlike Datsyuk or Kessler, always is asked to shut down the other team's top line. In Detroit, Datsyuk is counted on for offense more than defense, and Kessler -- while a fine two-way player -- isn't commonly known throughout the league as a shutdown guy like Staal is.

Like I said, it will be interesting.


NOTES:

With the elimination of the Pittsburgh Penguins' AHL Wilkes Barre affiliate in a 4-game, first round playoff sweep at the hands of the Albany River Rats, the Pens have recalled defenseman Deryk Engelland to the big club.

Engelland isn't expected to play tonight, but will stick with the team throughout the rest of the post-season as a member of their taxi squad. He probably won't be the only one called up, either. I would expect about 3-4 forwards to join the team over the next several days when they return to Pittsburgh from Ottawa, including -- potentially -- top power forward prospect Eric Tangradi, who joined the Penguins for his first NHL game in the season finale against the New York Islanders on April 11.