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Calgary Flames

Round Table Awards: The Kent Nilsson Award

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As part of our post-season wrap ups and moratoriums, the writers here at M&G are offering their insights into the Calgary Flames season, and voting on intra-site awards for various players.

Today’s award is the Kent Nilsson Award For Being The Best Forward On the Calgary Flames. More often referred to as the Kent Nilsson Award.

It's named for the first "great" Flames player (and the only one for quite a while), Kent Nilsson, who in his first season in Calgary, scored 131 points and 49 goals. While the last award boiled down to only two players, we've got a little bit more variety here. Read on for the arguments and winner!

Craig:

This was a second half team– and it was Jarome Iginla who’d lead the team in all facets of scoring after the All-star break with 38 points. During that stretch he had a Production time of 16:56, almost 2 minutes better than last years league MVP Henrik Sedin who this year, post All-star break registered a Production time (PROD) of 18:38.

Mitch:

This year, like most years, Jarome is the best forward on the Flames. The only shadow for him on this season was the dreaded early part of the season where he started extremely slow, even for him, otherwise he turned in his 5th best season overall in his career for points (86) and 3rd best for goals scored at 43. Iggy is 6th overall in the NHL in points and 3rd overall in the NHL for Goals this season. That to me says it all.

Ryan:

This definitely has to go to Alex Tanguay. He was brought in this summer to be a playmaker on the top line and he absolutely lived up to that billing. First assists are widely considered the best measure of a good setup man and Tanguay led the Flames in that category with 1.07 per 60. Matt Stajan was the only other forward over 1. And yes, I just heard some of your jaws drop. Tangs also ranked 18th in the league in A1 rate for players who played at least 40 games. He was the Flames top point producer (2.51 per 60) and even faced more difficult competition than Iginla. Hopefully Feaster can find a way to hold on to him this summer at a decent price because Alex Tanguay was the best forward on the Flames.

Hayley:

David Moss–Moss is another player who recovered spectacularly from an off-season in 2010-11. He quietly put together a very nice campaign with 17 goals and 30 points in 58 games before going down with a high ankle sprain. Moss was scoring at a rate 1.18 ES goals/game–the same as Jarome Iginla–and 2.36 ES points/60, and doing so with less ice time and with a Corsi rate of +8.26/60, the third best of all regular Flames forwards.

Arik:

David Moss. It's gotta be David Moss. He may not have had the huge point totals that other players did, but those are largely due to ice time and circumstance. No, what he had was amazing puck possession stats (both CORSI and Fenwick), and that's what drove the Flames during that nice period of time where they didn't suck. He had the 3rd best CORSI REL of all Flames forwards with at least 30 games, and really the best when you consider that Jackman and Backlund played cuuuuussshhhy minutes. David Moss turning into the MOSSNTSER is the secondary reason (behind Giordano) that the Calgary Flames had that massive second half turnaround.

And the winner is….

It's a tie! David Moss and Jarome Iginla!

by Arik Knapp