Tom Wilson was fined $5000 by the league for his actions in the game against the Rangers on Monday night. It is the maximum allowed under the current CBA. This is the second extra bit of punishment handed down to Wilson this year, as he had a seven-game suspension. I know it seems like nothing has happened earlier than five days ago for 14 months now, but he's a repeat offender by any measure of the term.

I won't wade into whether he did or didn't deserve a suspension. All I will say is this: all the slashing, all the cross-checking, all the hits from behind – all of this garbage – is all condoned and sanctioned by both the league and its players. If they didn't want this behaviour in the game, it wouldn't be in the game. If players wanted slashing on the hands gone – like really wanted it out of the game – it wouldn't exist. If players wanted cross-checks to the kidney out of the game, they wouldn't exist. Players want this. Teams want this. The NHL as an entity wants this. We need to start from that premise.

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We have some Lightning players skating:

Good news for #tblightning with Steven Stamkos on ice, first time with teammates since injury. Nikita Kucherov out there too. https://t.co/O1vy0T1oGL

— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithTB) May 4, 2021

Of course, by some players, we mean specifically Kucherov and Stamkos. They won't be back for the regular season, but something to keep in mind for your playoff pools.

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An interesting piece on Adam Gaudette and his condition of candidiasis

Adam Gaudette has played his whole NHL career underweight.

But after finally diagnosing and treating his candidiasis, he expects a huge offseason of getting bigger and stronger at last.

Today's story: https://t.co/wUixBTUmPc

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) May 4, 2021

Basically, Gaudette had problems with his digestive system to the point where he couldn't eat and would involuntarily vomit constantly. He says he's finally been diagnosed and can finally look forward to a full offseason of training, and the ability to bulk up.

This is an interesting twist here. Gaudette has certainly shown flashes of offensive brilliance, but very inconsistently. It makes sense that he was very inconsistent. This is a name to keep in mind for next season.

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Michael Houser did it again, and this time in spectacular fashion.

Houser saved 45 of 48 shots faced, including all three in the shootout, to take a 4-3 win from the Islanders. After having just two AHL games in the last few years, Houser now has two wins in two NHL games, the second one largely being entirely on him. This is just an incredible story at the end of a miserable Sabres season. Congrats to Houser.

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Carolina all but wrapped up the division with a 6-3 win over Chicago. Carolina now just needs one point in their final three games to sew up first place, and give us a Florida/Tampa Bay first round. Thank you, Carolina.

Nino Niederreiter and Andrei Svechnikov each had a pair of goals in this one. For Nino that gives him a 20-goal season in 53 games, a real nice rebound from the 11 goals and 29 points in 67 games from last year. For Svech, that is 15 goals and 41 points in 53 games as well. It is a downtick from last year but it's not concerning for me at all.

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Pittsburgh hung seven on Philadelphia, with the top line doing a lot of damage: one goal and two assists for Jake Guentzel and two goals and one assist for Sidney Crosby. That locks in a point-per-game season for Guentzel, the first of his career if we don't count his injury-shortened season last year.

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I am here taking a day off Alex's hands as he helped me out last week. Yesterday I wrote about our preseason Dobber's Experts' Panel, and my picks therein. Some were hits, some were misses. I recommend taking a spin through those Ramblings because I think there are a few very important lessons to be taken away from this season. (At the top with a bullet is never trusting Jeff Blashill.)

Today, I want to go through league award winners. I am going to do this by combing through each of the major awards, picking out who should win, and who will win. 'Should' is a subjective term here, as this is just my opinion. How about we stop wasting time, then.

Hart Trophy

Who will win: Connor McDavid

Who should win: Connor McDavid

Sometimes, the answer is really simple. The guy who is leading the NHL in points by a significant margin, the guy who has nearly 50 percent more WAR than the next-closest player, and the guy that has his team comfortably second in their division is a slam dunk.

The WAR thing is what's crazy to me. Now, WAR is based on results and players that aren't differentiated by much can be viewed as similar. With that said, McDavid is sitting with 4.2 WAR, according to Evolving Hockey, with no other player at 3.0 or above, and Patrice Bergeron the next-closest at 2.9. This isn't a rounding error; McDavid is lapping the field.

Now, it's fair to wonder whether McDavid has this kind of season if he can't put up 21 points in 9 games against the Sens, and instead seven of those games are against teams like Vegas, or Colorado, or even Los Angeles. But the problem with that line of thinking is we'd have to apply it down the line. In other words, do we give a massive goalie boost to guys like Demko and Hellebuyck and massive goalie dings to guys like Fleury or Grubauer? What about defencemen? Rookies? Unfortunately, adjustments like this probably aren't realistic and should thus be eschewed.

Norris Trophy

Who will win: Victor Hedman

Who should win: Adam Fox

It really does seem that the Norris is turning into some sort of lifetime achievement award over the last half-dozen years or so. Roman Josi probably deserved it last year but you'd likely have to go back to 2014-15 to find a truly deserving winner (Mark Giordano was fine). For that reason, I find it hard to believe Adam Fox will win it this year. Going back to the 2013 lockout, it's basically just P.K. Subban who showed out as a kid. than that, it's all guys in their late-20s or 30s, or guys with several years in the league already. It has been really hard for a young guy with no track record to break into the Norris conversation, and I don't see why that would stop this year.

Hedman is second in points in the league among blue liners, writers absolutely love him, and he has a long track record of excellence. He just hasn't been as good as Fox this year.

Relative to his team, Fox is top-5 in the league by expected goal share while Hedman is at -4 percent. That is a drastic difference in performance. I suspect that if we trade the teams of these two players, and even their ages, some writers would view them differently.

Two guys I think should get consideration are Charlie McAvoy and Cale Makar. Both missed time this year, the latter more than the former, and that probably hurts their cases. But Makar has been arguably the best defenceman in hockey (just with not enough games) and McAvoy has been a top-5 number-1 defenceman. They are both in the mix for me.

Vezina Trophy

Who will win: Marc-André Fleury

Who should win: Andrei Vaslievskiy

Like McDavid, this is a case where the simplest answer is probably the easiest. The guy who is second in the NHL in goals saved above expected, first in WAR, third in high-danger save percentage, first in wins, and second among all goalies in overall save percentage (min. 28 games) should probably win this award. The fact that he'll end up with at least 40 games played, something maybe only five goalies will end up achieving by the end of the year, only boosts this profile.

That is why it'll be hard to swallow the incoming Fleury win. Not that Fleury has been bad or anything; in fact, in every category listed, Fleury is close behind Vasy in every category except HDSV% (he's far behind there), and GSAx, where he's actually ahead. The difference for the two, with me, is that Vasy has played considerably more games, and he's still out-performed him, generally speaking.

All that said, this is voted on by general managers, and Fleury is one of the most beloved figures in the league. While Vasy probably should win, and he may win yet, it does seem as if Fleury will be the sentimental favourite when the votes are tallied. Not that it's something to get super upset over; Fleury has been incredible this year. I just think Vasy has been a bit better and has played more games.

Calder Trophy

Who will win: Kirill Kaprizov

Who should win: Jason Robertson

Quite simply, my argument comes down to this:

primary points/60 at 5v5 this year (500+ mins). three names of particular interest, I think (data from @NatStatTrick) pic.twitter.com/49wU46d72k

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) May 2, 2021

Now, I posted that on Sunday night so things have changed a bit, but Robertson has flat-out been one of the best producers of primary points at 5-on-5 in the league, full stop. Not among rookies, not just in his division, but among all players in the league. I don't want to say he's single-handedly driven the Stars to the brink of a playoff entry – they have a very steep climb to get in – but without him, they're completely lost.

One other thing worth mentioning: Robertson has six PPPs, while Kaprizov has 12. If Robertson had the same PP production as Kaprizov – Robertson has frequently been on PP2 – he would be over a point-per-game player. Again, he has been simply outstanding.

I don't want to take away from Kaprizov here. He has been fantastic, and I think he wins because the writers will remember Kaprizov's hat trick or his dazzling offensive maneuvers, and those kinds of things stick out in a person's memory. I would be surprised if half the NHL writers even looked at primary point production.

There really isn't a wrong answer here. Kaprizov has been dazzling while Robertson has been a machine at 5-on-5. They are both worthy and either winning is fine with me.

Coach of the Year

Who will win: Rod Brind'Amour

Who should win: Dean Evason

If everything holds constant, the Hurricanes have a shot at not only the top spot in their division, which includes both of last year's Cup Finalists, but top spot in the entire league. While they have been able to stay relatively healthy this year, he has taken a group of mostly young players and rocketed them to the top of the league. That is the type of coach that I think will get votes for the Jack Adams.

On the flipside, Dean Evason has taken a Minnesota team that had a massive COVID outbreak, lost Marco Rossi to those COVID effects, and went into the year with Victor Rask as their 2C, and brought them to the playoffs. They even have a shot at home-ice advantage in the first round. That kind of performance should be rewarded, but of late, writers have been voting for coaches from elite teams. To me, that feels like Brind'Amour this year.