Current Top Performers of the 2013 Season
ByCurrent Top Performers of the 2013 Season
North Bay’s Patrick Kane gets the nod for most valuable player, Buffalo’s Craig Anderson for best goaltender and Montreal’s Jonathan Huberdeau for best rookie, among others.
March 12th, 2013
GM of the year: Phil Svoboda, Twin City Vikings. Second place in the League Standings with a 45-23-16 record is no fluke. His activity level has been incredibly high and the extra work he put into shaping his roster in the offseason has really paid off. Honorable mention: Keith Cancilla, Montreal Xtreme. Nearing the end of a three year rebuild, the Xtreme are still in the race for the playoffs this year; Gates Imbeau, Hamilton Firestorm. He’s doing an incredible job keeping his injury-ravaged team at the top of the standings while under intense scrutiny as the defending champion.
Most valuable player: Patrick Kane, North Bay Warriors. His scoring is timely and prolific (14 goals, 30 points in 26 games). Close runner-up: Sidney Crosby, Buffalo Phantoms. Dominant again with an AFHL-best 45 points in 26 games for Buffalo.
Honorable mention: Steven Stamkos, Toronto Red Devils. Second to Crosby with 37 points in 25 games played.
Best goaltender: Craig Anderson, Buffalo. He sprained his ankle Feb. 21 but is still tops in goals-against average (1.49) and save percentage (.952).
Runners-up: Corey Crawford, solid for Oshawa City; Manhattan rookie Viktor Fasth, who started 8-0-0 and is among the leaders with a 1.92 goals-against average and .929 save percentage; and Lakehead’s Antti Niemi, a stalwart on a powerhouse team.
Rookie of the year: Jonathan Huberdeau, Montreal Xtreme. The dynamic center leads his class with 12 goals.
Runners-up: Pittsburgh Heroes center Cory Conacher, with a rookie-best 20 points, Philadelphia Crunch winger Brendan Gallagher and Montreal Xtreme winger Nail Yakupov.
Top defenseman: Toss-up between Kris Letang of the Lakehead IceHoles (26 points, +10 in 23 games) and bruiser Niklas Kronwall of the Boston Giants. Letang has more finesse and ice time (26:09 versus 24:05), but Kronwall has lifted his game in all areas since Nicklas Lidstrom retired. Kudos to Hamilton’s Ryan Suter, who averages more than 27 minutes per game and is getting stronger.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Warning: Undefined variable $user_ID in /misc/25/000/212/149/6/user/web/theafhl.com/wp-content/themes/FlexxProfessional/comments.php on line 48
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hard to argue with those choices for sure! Looking forward to the playoffs!
Thanks for the shout out Tony! Building this team has been a lot of fun and absolutely necessary to keep up with the talented GM’s of this league. Great group of guys and the best league ever!
Hard to argue indeed. The list for the best GM could be 10 names long this year. Might be the most closely contested award this year. Well done guys.
Yeah top GM is close… I like to think I’m in the discussion after Lupul, Karlsson, Spezza and Frattin are all out for long period of time and am still top 3… but if Tony makes the playoffs he gets my vote, never thought he’d come close.. or Matt if you can stay there and finish top 5 you may get my vote as well. Honestly, thought you’d be in that 7-10 spot, good job thus far man. Hard to not like what Keith has done though… haha could talk about every GM doing a good job will see where everyone lands at the end of the year.
Good stuff Tony. Top GM will be tough to repeat with so many deserving candidates. Best of luck to all… except maybe Jordan. He can wait until next year. 🙂
Wheres Jack Skille in the candidates for MVP? Guys been dominant all year.
Thanks for the pre-nod Tony although I feel there are better candidates out there. Glad to be mentioned with those other GM’s though! Perhaps some hardware this year, Montreal’s first and long awaited!
Great article Tony…all deserving gm’s were noted…close call on alot of them…makes for a great playoff race…good luck fellas!