Canucks: Elias Pettersson comes second in race for NHL's Lady Byng award

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Elias Pettersson’s season may have finished slowly, but there’s little doubt his overall style of play has drawn notice around the NHL.

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The Vancouver Canucks star finished second in voting for the Lady Byng Trophy, handed out to the player who the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association judges to show the best sportsmanship and “gentlemanly conduct” in the league, tied with a high level of skill.

Pettersson finished second to Carolina defenceman Jaccob Slavin. Slavin is a second-time winner: he won the award in 2020-21.

Pettersson, with 508 points finished two points in voting before Toronto’s Auston Matthews, but Slavin’s win was such a landslide that the point totals combined of Pettersson and Matthews still would have only placed second to Slavin’s 1174 points.

Slavin accrued 81 first-place votes; Matthews actually had more first-place votes than Pettersson, 24 to 13. But Pettersson was a strong second-place choice, appeared second on 31 ballots, more than any other player in the league (though still second to Slavin’s 33 second-placed votes).

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This was the first time Pettersson was a finalist for the Lady Byng. He won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year in 2019.

Brock Boeser was 16th in voting, receiving two third-place, seven fourth-place and another seven fifth-place votes. Ilya Mikheyev and Thatcher Demko also received votes.

Two Canucks could still win awards this season: Quinn Hughes remains a finalist — and the presumptive favourite — for the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenceman; the winner will revealed at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas last month, while Demko is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie; the winner will also be announced at the NHL Awards.

Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet was named as the NHL’s coach of the year last week, being named the winner of the Jack Adams Award.

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