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1996-97 LCS Hockey Year End Awards
By Michael Dell, editor-in-chief

Since mindless superstitions and pointless rituals are all that separate us from the animals, LCS: Guide to Hockey is once again back to hand out our annual year end awards. Unlike the official NHL Awards, ours aren't presented to the winners at a posh, televised ceremony in Toronto. No, instead we alert the winners the old fashioned way, through a series of prank phone calls and bogus pizza deliveries. If it was good enough for the ancient Romans, it's good enough for us.

So without further delay, here are the 1996-97 LCS: Guide to Hockey Award winners. And remember, this is only an exhibition. This is not a competition. So please, as always, no wagering.

BEST FORWARD: Jaromir Jagr, Pittsburgh Penguins: Yes, that's right, Jaromir Jagr. The Czech wonder kid is without a doubt the most dominating player in the NHL.

Jagr finished sixth in league scoring with 47 goals and 95 points in only 63 games. His .75 goals-per-game average was far and away the best in the league, almost a full tenth ahead of second place Mario Lemieux (.66). His numbers would have been far more staggering had it not been for a chronic groin injury in the second half of the season that cost him 19 games and reduced him to a one-legged skater when he did play. Before the injury took root, Jagr had ravaged the league for 41 goals in 44 games. Considering the pathetic state of the NHL, where goal-scoring is all but forbidden by the boneheads running the league, Jagr's pre-injury scoring barrage borders on the unreal.

People around the league that didn't have the pleasure of watching Jagr play on a regular basis may have written off his scoring achievements this season as just a result of playing on the same line with Lemieux. Those lucky enough to witness Jagr's greatness know the truth. For it was Jagr that was carrying Lemieux, not the other way around.

While Jagr is undeniably the greatest scorer in the world, the fact that he did suffer through such an injury-plagued season may make it hard for some to recognize him as the best forward of 1996-97. So to appease the doubters, we offer up four other candidates that deserve consideration. These select few are led by John LeClair (50-47-97), who finally proved once and for all that he's the real deal even when Eric Lindros is out of the lineup. Anaheim's dynamic duo of Teemu Selanne (51-58-109) and Paul Kariya (44-55-99) also deserve recognition. And the fourth guy? Well, we'll get to him later on in the MVP section...

BEST DEFENSEMAN: Brian Leetch, New York Rangers: It's tough to argue with Leetch's numbers. He played in every game for the Rangers and led all NHL defensemen in scoring with 78 points. He was one of only two defensemen in the league to score 20 goals this season, finishing with an even 20, behind only Colorado's Sandis Ozolinsh who bagged 23. Leetch also didn't neglect his defensive responsibilities, leading the Rangers with an impressive +31. While this season sucked all around, it seemed defensemen took the biggest hit. Not many blueliners made an impact at both ends of the ice. Leetch did.

BEST GOALTENDER: Dominik Hasek, Buffalo Sabres: This was a tough call. Martin Brodeur put up some amazing numbers, but Hasek was called upon to do more for the Sabres than Brodeur was for El Diablo. New Jersey has the best group of defensemen, one through six, in the league and are loaded with veteran forwards that know how to protect their goalie. Meanwhile, Buffalo's got Alexei Zhitnik as its number one defenseman... think about that for a minute. Scary, isn't it?

Even with an average blue line in front of him and a group of young, inexperienced forwards up front, Hasek came through like a champ for the Sabres, carrying the team to a very surprising Northeast Division championship. He appeared in 67 games, posting a record of 37-20-10 while leading the league in save percentage (.930) for the third consecutive year. There are a lot of great goaltenders in the NHL, but Hasek is probably the only one that can steal games all by himself on a regular basis. He's just that good. Now all he has to do is win a playoff series.

BEST ROOKIE: Janne Niinimaa, Philadelphia Flyers: In a purely criminal act, Niinimaa wasn't one of the finalists for the Calder Trophy. How'd that happen? Well, it's okay because LCS Hockey is once again here to make up for the NHL's mistake. Niinimaa walks away with the LCS Hockey hardware by performing like a seasoned veteran along the Philadelphia blue line. And we weren't swayed by his strong postseason either, we said Niinimaa should have been the rookie of the year way back in issue 66 before the playoffs even started. So don't pull any of that bandwagon-jumper-oner stuff with us.

In 77 games with the Flyers, Niinimaa posted four goals and 44 points while checking in at a +12. His main competition for the honor was the Islanders' Bryan Berard, who scored four more goals that Niinimaa and claimed the Calder for his efforts. While Berard is a great player, we gave Niinimaa the nod because he had to break in with the better club. Carving out a spot on the Islander blue line, when the club wasn't expected to go anywhere anyway, can't compare to logging major minutes along the Philly stripe.

BEST COACH: Jacques Martin, Ottawa Senators: Ted Nolan had a magnificent season in Buffalo. He deserves all the recognition he gets. But we give the nod to Martin for leading the Senators to the first ever playoff appearance in franchise history.

In his first full season behind the bench, Martin guided the Sens to a 31-36-15 record, good for 77 points and the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference. Along the way he completely rewrote the Ottawa record book. The 1996-97 Senators shattered every single existing team record. Here's a quick rundown of all the new marks set by Martin's crew, with the old standard in parenthesis:

Unlike Nolan, Martin accomplished all these feats without the services of a Vezina and Hart candidate in goal. Martin had to rely on a somewhat inconsistent Damian Rhodes and the peculiar stylings of LCS Hockey favorite Ron Tugnutt to get the job done between the pipes. However, thanks to Martin's conversion of the Senators into a patient, defense-first club, the goaltenders were rarely called upon to win a game by themselves. Under their coach's watchful eye, the Sens cut their goals-against by 57 from a year ago and only exposed their goaltenders to an average of 25.4 shots a game, one of the lightest workloads in the league.

This defensive renaissance is all the more remarkable when considering that Sean Hill and Stanislav Neckar, two of Ottawa's top defensemen, both went down with season-ending knee injuries after the schedule's first five games. That right there should have been enough to send the Sens to another dreadful season, but Martin simply wouldn't allow it. He stayed calm and took control of the situation, giving Ottawa some success on which to build its promising future.

BEST GM: Scotty Bowman, Detroit Red Wings: Bowman paved the way for his team winning the Stanley Cup by making three key player acquisitions throughout the season. First, he packaged Paul Coffey and Keith Primeau to Hartford in exchange for Brendan Shanahan, who gave the Wings more leadership and a talented, physical on-ice presence that they previously lacked. Second, Bowman shipped the skilled but small Greg Johnson to Pittsburgh for Tomas Sandstrom. The Swedish winger hardly tore up the scoring charts in Detroit, but he added even more size and played a steady defensive game. Bowman's final move, and perhaps the most important, was acquiring Larry Murphy from Toronto shortly before the trade deadline.

Few thought the veteran blueliner had anything left, yet Bowman had faith. His devotion was rewarded when Murphy came to the Motor City and played some of the best hockey of his career in the playoffs. Murphy's presence meant that Bowman no longer had to use rookies Aaron Ward and Jamie Pushor as the club's third defensive pair, enabling him to drop the experienced Bob Rouse down to team with Ward. A subtle change, but one that made a world of difference in the postseason. And Bowman's foresight made it all possible.

MVP: Tony Amonte, Chicago Blackhawks: Don't get us wrong, Dominik Hasek was a tremendously deserving MVP winner. But here at LCS Hockey we like to give attention to the guys that often get overlooked. And Tony Amonte deserves far more attention than he's receiving from the main stream media.

Amonte was a one-man team this season in Chicago. When Jeremy Roenick, Joe Murphy, and Bernie Nicholls all left down over the off-season, it was widely believed that the Blackhawks' offense went with them. Don't tell that to Amonte. The speedy right winger became a national hero in the United States for scoring the winning goal for the stars and stripes at the World Cup. He carried that momentum into the regular season, along with a flowing mane of hair, to become an honest to goodness superstar.

Known previously as a secondary scorer that could chip in 30 goals, Amonte stepped forward as the go-to guy for the 1996-97 Blackhawks, leading the team with 41 goals and 77 points. Amonte was the Chicago offense, accounting for 18.4% of the team's total goals. He just became a much better finisher this season. Amonte started to gain a rather infamous reputation in recent years as someone who never buried enough of the chances that his speed produced. Whatever the reason for the turnaround, whether it be the confidence from the World Cup or the strength derived from his Samson hair style, Amonte was a different man this season. It showed most on breakaways, where he even developed a lethal backhand-forehand deke that left many a goaltender swimming.

And it wasn't just that he was scoring goals, it was how he scored them. Amonte took charge of games and dominated with his speed and determination. He came through with the big goals in the big games and he did all the little things to make himself and his team better. When he wasn't blasting shots on net or streaking in on breakaways, Amonte became a much more aggressive hitter and took care of business in the defensive end, racking up an incredible +35. The guy did it all.

Without Amonte in the Chicago lineup, the Hawks would have been a joke. Jagr had Lemieux, LeClair had Lindros, Selanne had Kariya, but there was no one to help Amonte carry the load. Sure, Alexei Zhamnov was around, but he isn't even close to the same stratosphere as those other players. Amonte was the show. In a season that was almost completely void of excitement, Amonte was a bolt of lightning.

LCS: Guide to Hockey

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