TIG Roundtable: PWHL Awards – Forward, Defender, Goaltender of the Year

We’re back with our picks for the final three regular season awards! As a quick reminder, the PWHL is handing out 10 awards in an inaugural season. If you missed it, yesterday we talked about three of them – MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Coach of the Year. Another two are based on stats, one is community involvement, and the seventh is the Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP.

Today we’re talking about the final three – positional awards for forward, defender, and goaltender of the year.

Forward of the Year

Awarded to the forward who showcases the most outstanding ability at the position throughout the regular season

Alex Carpenter – Mike Murphy

I discussed Carpenter a bit earlier, but the reason she gets the nod for me here is pretty simple – she had points on about half of PWHL New York’s goals. Half. On the lowest-scoring team in the league, Carpenter was a point-per-game player facing the opposition’s best defenders each and every game. Of course, you can make a strong case for a few players here but Carpenter succeeding as an individual while her team underachieved made her stand out to me.

Grace Zumwinkle – Geremy

While a lot of the attention towards Minnesota naturally went towards its first overall pick in Taylor Heise, the MVP of the season for Minnesota is arguably Grace Zumwinkle. Minnesota was not a team built for winning games offensively but rather through opportunistic scoring and tight defensive structure. They went out and traded a productive forward in Susanna Tapani for a struggling Sophie Jaques just to get some offense on the backend. It’s a team that as a whole is sporting the fourth highest Team SH% (7.23%) in the PWHL. So when you have a player like Zumwinkle who is sixth in league scoring it helps a lot. 

Being sixth in league scoring though doesn’t sound much like a Forward of the Year Award winner right? That’s fair so let’s dive deeper. Zumwinkle is third in the PWHL in primary points (16) behind the Toronto duo of Spooner/Nurse with Zumwinkle’s own linemates in Coyne/Heise only having 10 primary points each. Zumwinkle generates a lot of offense through her shot which is why she’s second in PWHL Shots/60 (13.02) and second in goals (10). Most importantly the offense Zumwinkle creates comes from even-strength where she’s once again third in primary points coming in behind the Toronto duo. No one in this league is doing it alone but if anyone would have a decent claim to that statement, it’d be Grace Zumwinkle. 

Grace Zumwinkle – Angelica Rodriguez

Alex Carpenter one hundred percent deserves her flowers for being one of the few bright spots on a bad New York team (more on the other one from me in just a moment), but I have to commend Zumwinkle for being a huge part of the reason for Minnesota’s hot start this season. Though that fire has since cooled, she’s still leading in goals and points amongst first-year pros, and she was able to step up in a huge way when Minnosota lost Taylor Heise. Her electricity on offense was very much needed, and the fact she’s just 25 years old means we doubtless have plenty more to come when it comes to her.

Alex Carpenter – Maya Smith

Carpenter laced up the skates for one of the worst teams in the league this year, but you wouldn’t know that from the way that she’s produced. She is 3rd in points, and as Mike said, she’s had points in about half of her team’s goals. Carpenter leads her team in all production categories and she showed up consistently, especially when it counted to bring in those OT or shootout win points. 

It felt like we talked about her almost every week as a player that stood out to us on P-Dub in Twenty and I was constantly amazed by the ways she was able to get it done this season. 

Defender of the Year

Awarded to the defender who showcases the most outstanding ability at the position throughout the regular season

Erin Ambrose – Mike Murphy

If I am starting a franchise today, I’d go with Sophie Jaques or Ella Shelton. But, if I’m picking the defender who had the best regular season I am going with Erin Ambrose. In my opinion, Ambrose has been the second-best player at her position in the world for a few years now (second to Finland’s Jenni Hiirikoski) and she looked like a superstar in Montreal. Ambrose is currently leading all defenders in scoring but what sets her apart is her decision making and ability to move the puck. She’s second to no one when it comes to processing the game and that is why she’s my Defender of the Year.

Ella Shelton – Geremy

For me it came down to Erin Ambrose and Ella Shelton for this spot. I, obviously, went with Shelton in this spot because I had decide if what Ambrose was doing more impressive than what Shelton was doing and it’s not by the thinnest of margins. Shelton has been hard carrying the New York defense all season both offensively and defensively. She’s been asked to do it all and it looks bad that New York is the first team eliminated but I believe that doesn’t fall upon her shoulders. Plus/minus is not a great stat to work with but with a lack of public defensive stats I think it can be used to help paint a picture of Shelton’s work. She logs the most minutes per game on the team and the fourth highest in the PWHL. 

On the type of team she’s on plus the minutes she plays you’d expect Shelton to be near the bottom in team plus minus when there’s three blueliners and four forwards ahead of her with worse plus/minus in fewer minutes. On offense Shelton showed her two-way reputation has quite the offensive punch to it as well: second in blueliner points (15), tied first in blueliner primary points (13), first in blueliner primary points/60 (1.33), first in blueliner goals (5), second on New York in points (15), second in blueliner even-strength primary points (6), and has been a shot generation machine with being fifth in SOG/60 (5.32). 

Ella Shelton – Angelica Rodriguez

Not only has Ella Shelton proven herself on the offensive side of the puck, scoring the first goal in PWHL history for New York and contributing offensively as much as she can… but this blueliner is one of the best examples of being an offensive threat while also not neglecting her duties on the back end of the ice. Her positioning and awareness are superb, and her ability to make literal game-saving plays? Chef’s kiss. 

Shelton has five goals and 14 points as of this writing, but that’s not even half of what she can do. I’m hoping she has some comrades on defense next year who have the ability to stay healthy and on point alongside her, because she’s been nothing short of stellar in her first-ever pro season. And again, as Geremy pointed out, that’s not easy to do on a team like hers. 

Erin Ambrose – Maya Smith

This was really hard for me to choose. I think both Shelton and Ambrose deserve it. If it was an award for epic firsts, it would go to Shelton. But I think in terms of overall defensive abilities, I’d give it to Ambrose. 

Ambrose is first in assists and points by all defenders and is second in goals. Her +/- is quite strong, especially given the amount of minutes she logs in a game. She also leads her team in goals, assists, and points by any defender. 

Defensively, she’s one of the strongest in the world in front of her own net and gets a lot of minutes because of her decision-making, puck movement, and overall hockey sense.  

Goaltender of the Year

Awarded to the goaltender who showcases the most outstanding ability at the position throughout the regular season

Aerin Frankel – Mike Murphy

Wow, this was a tough one. I think Elaine Chuli and Corinne Schroeder also had great years and Kristen Campbell had an amazing comeback after an alarming start, but I’m going with Frankel. She played more minutes than Chuli and Schroeder and thrived in her first pro season. Honestly, my answer for this one could change by tomorrow and almost certainly by the end of the season but if I have to pick now, I’m going with Frankel’s .930 Sv% in 991 minutes played to keep her team in the playoff hunt.

Nicole Hensley – Geremy

As mentioned above with the Grace Zumwinkle award talk, Minnesota was a team built to withstand offensive pressure then be opportunistic in their own scoring chances which the numbers bear out. Minnesota is fourth of six teams in Goals For/60 (2.19) but is closer to the bottom of the league than they are to the top three teams. With little goal support that means the goalie needs to step up and did Nicole Hensley ever step up for the team. Minnesota is hanging onto their playoff spot by the tip of their fingers at this point but it’s not because of goaltending as Hensley has gone above expectations.

The biggest knocks against Hensley we’ll see is people seeing her low SA/60 and her SV% being lower than say Corinne Schroeder. Reason I point out those two numbers specifically is that they correlate with each other. The higher a goalies SA/60, the higher their SV% will be. Hensley is getting punished in her SV% due to the lower amount of shots against. What’s been valuable about Hensley’s play is her consistency which is brought out in her PWHL leading QS% of 0.769. No goalie has given their team the best chance to win more consistently than Hensley.

Corinne Schroeder – Angelica Rodriguez

It’s true: Schroeder is the goaltender for a team that was first to earn their spot in the Gold Plan. But to be incredibly frank, that was never her fault. The Canadian standout is currently second only to Elaine Chuli in save percentage while facing the third-highest total number of shots faced. 

I seriously considered Chuli as well, but to be fair she’s only played a handful of games in a backup role to Ann-Renee Desbiens, so if we’re going fully based on a starter’s role, I have to give it to Schroeds for at least giving her team a fighting chance night in and night out. For the amount of rubber she’s faced and the fact that the team in front of her has done precious little to help her out, I can’t deny her the inaugural GoY nod for the PWHL. Add yet another piece of hardware to her case, if it can’t be the Walter Cup this year.

Emererance Maschmeyer  – Maya Smith

You know I had to do it to ‘em. Yes, you aren’t going to see Masch with the lowest goals against average, or the lowest goals against. But no goaltender was more instrumental to their team this season than Masch. 

There is only one game (at the time of writing) that Maschmeyer didn’t play for Ottawa this season. She has played the most games and minutes of any goalie this season and faced the most shots against. 

The team clearly had all of their faith in her, and I don’t think we see them fighting for a playoff spot without the goaltending that Masch has provided this season. I think they all owe her a drink.