Devils hot topic: Should playoffs count for NHL awards? on Astini News

The playoffs don't count for the NHL's individual awards, which will be handed out Wednesday in Las Vegas. But what if they did?

The Devils' Adam Henrique, who is a candidate for the Calder Trophy for the league's top rookie, finished the regular season a point behind the Avalanche's Gabriel Landeskog, 52-51, though Henrique led all rookies with 35 assists.

The Avalanche didn't make the playoffs, but the Devils made it to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals, largely on the young shoulders of Henrique, who led the entire playoffs with three game-winning goals - and two of them were OT series-clinchers. Who would win if the playoffs counted?

Devils' coach Pete DeBoer isn't even a candidate for the Jack Adams award, the award for the "coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success." The finalists are the Blues' Ken Hitchcock, the Senators' Paul MacLean and the Rangers' John Tortorella - each of whom guided their teams to tremendous success - during the regular season, that is. Even just using the regular season as the standard, one could argue DeBoer was snubbed, as the Devils returned to the playoffs and improved 20 points over the 2010-11 team's mark - that's better than MacLean's 18 point-improvement and Tortorella's 16 (Hitchcock's was 22 points).

But the Senators and Blues were first- and second-round flameouts in the playoffs, respectively, and DeBoer's Devils beat Torts' Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals. Is DeBoer a candidate and maybe the winner if the playoffs are included?

And why don't the playoffs count for awards in the NHL, the league where probably more than any other, the playoffs are a new season? So engravings can be made in time for a ceremony scheduled for a week after the champion may be crowned? Should the playoffs count?

Let's see your comments below - and while you're at it, do you think Henrique will win the Calder over Landeskog and Edmonton's Ryan Nugent-Hopkins?