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Buffalo Sabres History: Selke Trophy Winners

By Melissa Kania

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The National Hockey League will hold its annual year-end awards ceremony this year on June 24 in Las Vegas. The league will celebrates its top players in both on-ice and off-ice performances, rewarding representatives from the top scorers to the best goaltenders and everything in between. As the NHL continues to announce its nominees for the yearly awards, we’ll take a look back at the history of each award and when – if ever – a member of the Buffalo Sabres franchise has won it.

Some of these awards have been given out for 90 years, while others are newer. Regardless, it’s a true honor for any player to receive these awards.

Today, we’ll look at the Selke Trophy.

The Selke Trophy is given annual to the league’s best defensive forward. It was presented first in 1978 and was named after Frank J. Selke, a former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.

The recipient of the award is selected via poll of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association at the culmination of the regular season.

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    • A member of the Buffalo Sabres franchise has won the Selke Trophy twice.

    Left winger Craig Ramsay became the first Buffalo Sabres player to win the award after the 1984-85 season. Ramsey registered 12 goals and 21 assists for 33 points and a plus-17 rating that season.

    At the age of 33, he was one of the oldest winners of the Selke Trophy at that time. (Bobby Clarke, who had won it two years prior, was also 33.)

    To this day, only Steve Yzerman (34) and Rod Brind’Amour (35, 36) have been older recipients of the award. The youngest was 20-year-old Steve Kasper, who won it after the 1981-82 season.

    The other member of the Buffalo Sabres organization to win the Selke: center Michael Peca, who got the award after the 1996-97 season. Peca registered 49 points that season and was a plus-26 at the age of just 22. He also won the Selke again after the 2001-02 season with the NY Islanders.

    Peca, of course, remains involved with hockey in Buffalo to this day, as a member of the Buffalo Jr. Sabres organization.

    Historically, the team with the most Selke winners: the Detroit Red Wings. Pavel Datsyuk has won it three times, with Kris Draper, Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov (twice) also past winners.

    This year’s nominees for the Selke Trophy are: Jonathan Toews, Patrice Bergeron and Anze Kopitar. Bergeron has won the award two of the last three years, while Toews won it in 2013. Kopitar would be a first-time winner. Who do you think will get it?

    Next: Buffalo Sabres Vezina Winners

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