Vancouver Canucks Prospects: NCAA Season Awards

The Vancouver Canucks keep getting outshone by their prospects.

For the Vancouver Canucks who are in full rebuild mode, that is actually good news. Two of their three NCAA Division One prospects have earned season honours to wrap up the 2015-16 season. Although the Canucks won’t be rushing any of these prospects to the NHL, they will only get better for the years to come.

NCHC Rookie of the Year: RW Brock Boeser

The Brock Boeser show doesn’t know when to end, eh? After being selected to the Division’s All-Star teams and setting Zach Parise-like numbers, Boeser has been named the Rookie of the Year by the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. Boeser had 48 points in 36 regular season games and currently has five assists in two playoff games.

His third-ever NHCH playoff game will take place tonight, when his North Dakota Fighting Hawks takes on the Minnesota Duluth. North Dakota is a big favourite to trump this one-game winner-takes-all round over the 16th-ranked Minnesota team. After all, North Dakota is ranked first overall.

The NCHC playoffs, also known as the Frozen Faceoff, will see North Dakota in the finals on Sunday, should Boeser lead his team to a victory on Friday night. If a massive upset takes place and North Dakota loses, they will face the loser of the Denver-St. Cloud State matchup on Saturday night.

Although this is great news for Canucks fans, perhaps I should clarify some things. The NCHC consists of just eight teams. It is just a subdivision of the NCAA. How did the NCAA split off into so many conferences? Long story.

Hockey East Player of the Year: G Thatcher Demko

Thatcher Demko was dubbed the co-Player of the Year for the Hockey East conference. He also lead his team, the Boston College Eagles, to the top of the conference standings and also to the semifinals of the Hockey East Championship. His .938 save percentage and 1.78 goals against average indicates that he will be challenging Jacob Markstrom in a few years’ time for the Canucks’ number one job.

Hockey East semifinals will see Boston College face off against Northeastern University (also known in Vancouver as prospect Adam Gaudette’s current team) on Friday for the chance to play on Saturday for the championship. Fun fact: Demko will play at the TD Garden.

Expect a stellar performance tonight, maybe a drop-off on Saturday night should Boston College get there. Back-to-back nights were never the thing for Demko, who had to play three games in three nights last weekend. He posted a shutout on day one and proceeded to give up three goals in each of the two games following.

Demko is also a finalist in the Hobey Baker award nomination. More to come.

Demko’s honour Greater than Boeser’s

All the hype in Vancouver is about Boeser — and rightfully so. The Canucks have lacked a clinical scorer for years after Daniel Sedin had his glories with his brother Henrik some handful years ago. No knock on Boeser but Demko deserves more credit for his Player of the Year award than Boeser does for his Rookie of the Year award.

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First of all, Boeser is the ROOKIE of the year. Demko is the PLAYER of the year. Boeser was deemed the best of the rookies, Demko was deemed the best of the entire league from the rookies to the seniors. Big difference.

The second point is that while the NCHC consists of just eight teams, the Hockey East conference is made up of 14 teams. Demko had to compete against more players, rookies and seniors alike while Boeser only had to contend with the rookies of a smaller league.

Lastly, how many times did this hockey world see the scoring points outweighing the netminder’s stats? To win a league-wide honour as a netminder among skaters is not an easy thing to do. Congratulations to Demko. It helps that the fingers typing this used to be in gloves and blockers, too. Nevertheless, congratulations to Boeser for his award as well.

Both of these players play tonight and at least once more this weekend. Demko is looking to potentially tie the NCAA record for the most single-season shutouts (12) which is held by Greg Gardner since 2000. If he shuts out both games this weekend, the record is his to keep.

Next: More than just the NCAA: Prospects Playoff Watch Week #1

As for Boeser, he is just two points away from tying Zach Parise’s record as the only North Dakota freshman to score 50 points in the last 35 years. Boeser seems to have more to his game than just scoring, though. More to come on our Canucks Weekly Prospects Watch!