Established 1964–65 NHL season Category of NHL Awards | ||
 | ||
People also search for Hart Memorial Trophy, Vezina Trophy | ||
The Conn Smythe Trophy (French: Trophée Conn Smythe) is awarded annually to the player judged most valuable to his team (MVP) during the National Hockey League's (NHL) Stanley Cup playoffs. It is named after Conn Smythe, the longtime owner, general manager, and head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Conn Smythe Trophy has been awarded 48 times to 42 players since the 1964–65 NHL season. Each year, at the conclusion of the final game of the Stanley Cup Final, members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association vote to elect the player deserving of the trophy. The trophy is handed out prior to the presentation of the Stanley Cup by the NHL Commissioner and only the winner is announced, in contrast to most of the other NHL awards which name three finalists and are presented at a ceremony.
Unlike the playoff MVP awards presented in the other major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada (the Super Bowl MVP, the NBA Finals MVP, and the World Series MVP), the Conn Smythe is based on a player's performance during the entire NHL postseason instead of just the championship game or series.
History
The Conn Smythe Trophy was introduced in 1964 by Maple Leaf Gardens Limited to honor Conn Smythe, the former owner, General Manager, and coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder. The trophy's design is similar to Maple Leaf Gardens, the arena in which the Maple Leafs played their home games from 1931 to 1999, with a botanically-correct maple leaf further embellishing it as well.
The first winner of the award was center Jean Béliveau of the Montreal Canadiens in 1965. The first player and only defenseman to win it twice was Bobby Orr, who scored the Cup-clinching goals for the Boston Bruins in 1970 and 1972. Goaltender Bernie Parent (for the Philadelphia Flyers) and centers Wayne Gretzky (for the Edmonton Oilers) and Mario Lemieux (for the Pittsburgh Penguins) have also won it twice each, with Parent and Lemieux each winning theirs back to back (1974/1975 and 1991/1992 respectively). Goaltender Patrick Roy is the only player to win the trophy three times, and also the only player to win it as a member of two different teams (with the Canadiens in 1986 and 1993, and with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001); his wins also fall into three different decades. Ken Dryden, the 1971 Smythe winner, is the only NHL player to win this trophy before winning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year (in 1972): Montreal called him up to play only six regular season games, which is not enough to qualify as a rookie season. Dave Keon's eight playoff points in 1967 is the fewest ever by a non-goalie Conn Smythe winner, as he was a defensive forward and is the only Maple Leafs player to win the trophy donated by his club's parent company.
Though the award rewards a player who performed particularly well over the entirety of the playoffs, it has never been given to a player whose team did not at least reach the Stanley Cup Finals. The trophy has been awarded to members of the team that lost the Finals five times, most recently Jean-Sébastien Giguère of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003, who backstopped his team's surprise run to the Finals, where they pushed the New Jersey Devils to seven games. The only skater to win the award in a losing cause is Philadelphia's Reggie Leach, who won it in 1976 as he had set a league record for most goals in the playoffs (19), which included a five-goal game in the semifinals and four goals in the Finals, even though the Canadiens swept his Flyers.
With seven exceptions, the winners of the Conn Smythe Trophy have all been Canadian. The seven non-Canadian winners are Americans Brian Leetch, who won it in 1994, Tim Thomas in 2011, Jonathan Quick in 2012, and Patrick Kane in 2013; Russian Evgeni Malkin, who won it in 2009; and Swedes Nicklas Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg, who won it in 2002 and 2008, respectively.
Only three players have won the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy for Most Valuable Player during the regular season in the same year: Orr in 1970 and 1972, Guy Lafleur in 1977 and Gretzky in 1985. These three players also won the Art Ross Trophy as regular season leading scorer, while Orr also won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as top defenceman to give him a record four individual original NHL awards in 1970.
The trophy had been won sixteen times each by centers and goaltenders, nine times by defensemen, seven times by right wings, and just once by a left wing (Bob Gainey of Montreal in 1979). Canadiens players have won it nine times, Detroit Red Wings players five times, and Oilers, Flyers, and New York Islanders players four times each. The St. Louis Blues are the only team without a Stanley Cup victory to have a Conn Smythe Trophy winner, as Glenn Hall won in 1968.