Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

Awards are nice and the NHL has evolved to the point where it appears to have one for nearly every player or circumstance in the game today.

Award shows are also kind of nice in that they do give fans a chance to see hockey players close up, teeth in and, in a few cases at least, with a sense of humour and even a cogent thought or two (something that’s not always in long supply in what has become a sanitized locker room setting these days).

But what truly caught my eye coming out of the glitz and tacky "glamour" of Las Vegas and the NHL Awards show Wednesday night was how obvious it was that the game has changed and that the old guard, a dominant old guard that stretches back to the era of Wayne Gretzky and Bryan Trottier and runs through the likes of Brendan Shanahan, Peter Forsberg, Mario Lemieux, and Ray Bourque along with Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek and Ed Belfour, has truly been replaced.

The "new" NHL is all about the young players in the game today. The always downplayed but still superbly relevant All-Star team announcements illustrate this point.

The first team that was revealed at the awards gathering consisted of Ryan Miller (Buffalo) in goal; Duncan Keith (Chicago) and Mike Green (Washington) on defence and Henrik Sedin (Vancouver), Patrick Kane (Chicago) and Alexander Ovechkin (Washington) at forward.

The second unit was made up of Ilya Bryzgalov (Phoenix) in goal; Drew Doughty (Los Angeles) and Nik Lidstrom (Detroit) on defence and Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh), Martin St. Louis (Tampa Bay) and Daniel Sedin (Vancouver) up front.

Aside from Lidstrom (who recently turned 40 but still plays like he’s 10 years younger) there are no "old guard" players on either team. St. Louis is 35, but I would argue he was among the first wave of this new generation and still plays with the youthful exuberance of a 25-year-old while bringing the smarts that come with a decade more of experience.

Miller will turn 30 this offseason and with five NHL seasons behind him and a Vezina Trophy and an Olympic silver medal now in his possession he is just coming into his own at the position. Keith is about to turn 27, young for a defenseman who had an all-star season, he won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman, was a legitimate candidate for the Conn Symthe Trophy as playoff MVP and has a Stanley Cup ring on his finger. Green, who may someday soon bypass Keith, is just 24 and already perhaps the most dynamic offensive defenseman in the game today.

Like Miller, Henrik Sedin turns 30 later this year and after a steady climb through the learning curve in the NHL, Wednesday he became the first Swedish born and trained hockey player to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP since Forsberg. Patrick Kane is all of 21 going on 22 and has a Calder Trophy as rookie of the year and a Stanley Cup winning goal in his collection as well as an Olympic silver medal.

He may have the disrespect of cab drivers everywhere, but when he grows up off the ice, he should catch up to his magnificent skills on it and play at a high level for a decade or more to come. Ovechkin, arguably the most dynamic and talented player in the game today is going to turn 25 and has pretty much won everything the NHL has to offer except the Smythe and the Stanley Cup.

The second team is its own showcase with Crosby, soon to be 23, already with a Hart, Art Ross and Lester Pearson (most outstanding player, now renamed the Ted Lindsey Trophy), an Olympic gold medal, the Rocket Richard Trophy for leading goal scoring and a Stanley Cup (where he was the youngest captain ever to lead a team to hockey’s ultimate prize). Drew Doughty, the spectacular Los Angeles Kings defenseman is just 20 and has a gold medal. Daniel Sedin matches brother Henrik (to the minute) in age and almost does the same in total points. St. Louis seems to have been around forever, but he’s still an in-demand player, a superb competitor and won the Lady Byng Trophy this season lapping the second-place Brad Richards in total points (971-449). Ilya Bryzgalov is the same age as Miller and was the runner up to the Sabres goalie in Vezina Trophy balloting that many thought should have been closer than the final tally.

That speaks volumes for the NHL in 2010 and beyond. The Chicago Blackhawks won the Cup on the strength of their youthful players, not the least of which (and arguably the best of which) is Jonathan Toews, who didn’t make either All-Star team, but who just might be the most complete forward in the game today. He too won a gold medal in the Olympics and won the Conn Smythe Trophy this spring even though he didn’t score a goal in the final.

Toews finished fourth in balloting for the Selke Award (defensive forward) and would seem to be an heir apparent to Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit) someday, as did another rising young player, Ryan Kesler (Vancouver) who finished second and appears to be a star in the making, especially off his performance in the playoffs and the Olympics.

Tyler Myers (Buffalo) won the Calder Trophy at just 19 years of age and had to outperform rising young stars Jimmy Howard (Detroit) and Mat Duchene (Colorado) to do so. The great rookie list doesn’t end with those three. If you look at the final vote you also get a list of amazing young talents in the game today.

Boston goalie Tuukka Rask finished fourth in Calder balloting. He may have played substantially fewer games than Miller, but he did finish first in goals against average and save percentage and was the primary reason the Bruins ousted the Sabres in the first round of the playoffs. John Tavares, the first pick in the 2009 Entry Draft, had a standout season for the New York Islanders.

Keith, Green and Doughty were 1-2-3 in Norris balloting. Youth was served throughout the top ten in that regard with Nashville’s young defensive standouts Shea Weber and Ryan Suter and Vancouver’s Christian Ehrhoff and Islander Mark Streit hanging tough with the likes of veterans Lidstrom, Chris Pronger, Dan Boyle and Zdeno Chara.

Henrik Sedin seemed to speak for all of the young stars in the game when, posing with both the Art Ross and the Hart he said: "It’s like I don’t belong here," he said. There’s all these great players and me."

He couldn’t be more wrong.

Sedin grabbed 894 points and 46 first-place votes. In what was likely one of the closest votes in history. Ovechkin finished with 834 points and 40 first-place votes while Crosby had 729 points and 20 first-place markers.

Ironically, Ovechkin had been named the recipient of the newly minted Ted Lindsay Trophy, the MVP award voted on by members of the NHLPA, earlier in the evening and Crosby won the Mark Messier leadership award.

They are now a part of a large group who stand apart from the past and whose time is clearly now.

Truly the torch has been passed and hockey is all the better for it.