- Suzuki won the Selke in a landslide with 151 first-place votes
- Caufield took the Lady Byng after his 51-goal season
- Read below for video of the teammates surprising each other
Nick Suzuki won the Selke Trophy, Cole Caufield won the Lady Byng, and the NHL got them to hand each other the hardware.
Both awards became official Friday. The actual reveal came weeks earlier in the Montreal locker room, where each player thought he was only there to surprise the other.
Check out the video of the double reveal:
All of it went down May 10, a day after the Canadiens beat Buffalo 6-2 to grab a 2-1 lead in their second-round series. Players were called in for what they thought was a routine meeting. In the video, Caufield is lounging in his stall when Suzuki walks over with the Lady Byng.
Suzuki described getting blindsided right after playing presenter.
“I thought I was coming in this morning just to our meeting and present Cole with the Lady Byng. I didn’t expect that at all, after. You guys definitely tricked both of us. Pretty surreal right now, really honored to be selected for the award.”
Voting wasn’t close on his end. Suzuki pulled 151 first-place votes while runner-up Anthony Cirelli got 10, per the PHWA tally. A career-high 101 points, a plus-37 rating and seven seasons without a missed game did the talking. He joins Bob Gainey and Guy Carbonneau as the only Canadiens to win the Selke.
The Lady Byng race was tighter, with four players drawing at least 20 first-place votes. Caufield’s 51 goals next to 14 penalty minutes carried the day. He’s the first Canadien to hit 50 since Stephane Richer in 1989-90 and the first to win the award since Mats Naslund in 1987-88.
Caufield kept his speech short and aimed it at the room.
“I didn’t expect this. This doesn’t happen without you guys, everybody in this room.”
Jeff Gorton loved how it played out. “Kind of a unique way of revealing the trophies,” the Canadiens president of hockey operations said. “They’re very humble guys. They want to always give credit to the team, and you saw that.”
Surprise reveals have been the league’s move all week. Marcus Foligno got the King Clancy at a children’s hospital just a day earlier. Montreal’s season ended in the East Final, but the Bell Centre trophy case keeps filling up.
