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New Jersey Devils forward Taylor Hall wins Hart Trophy as NHL MVP

LAS VEGAS — Taylor Hall has won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player for the 2017-18 season.
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LAS VEGAS — Taylor Hall has won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player for the 2017-18 season.

The 26-year-old New Jersey Devils winger beat out Colorado Avalanche centre Nathan MacKinnon and Los Angeles Kings centre Anze Kopitar for the honour at Wednesday’s awards show in Las Vegas.

Hall led the Devils with 39 goals and 54 assists and a plus-14 defensive rating in 76 games played. He was sixth in NHL scoring.

The Hart is selected by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.

Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid won the Ted Lindsay award, as the NHL players union’s choice as the league’s most outstanding player

It was a big night for the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in their hometown as Gerard Gallant won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year, while George McPhee was named the NHL’s top general manager.

Vegas stunned the hockey world this season by finishing with 109 points to top the Pacific Division before making it all the way to the Stanley Cup final.

Gallant beat out Bruce Cassidy of the Boston Bruins and Colorado’s Jared Bednar. McPhee topped Winnipeg Jets counterpart Kevin Cheveldayoff and Steve Yzerman of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Knights centre William Karlsson also grabbed some hardware, winning the Lady Byng Trophy as the NHL’s most gentlemanly player ahead of Ryan O’Reilly of the Buffalo Sabres and Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers.

Nashville Predators goalie Pekka Rinne won the Vezina Trophy as the top goalie for the 2017-18 season. The 35-year-old Finn took home the honour for the first time.

A finalist for the fourth time, Rinne beat out Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets and Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

New York Islanders centre Mathew Barzal won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year, Tampa Bay Lightning blue-liner Victor Hedman won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defencemen and Los Angeles Kings centre Anze Kopitar won his second Selke Trophy as the top defensive forward.

While the NHL was honouring its best, the league also looked back at three tragedies that great impacted the 2017-18 hockey season.

Surviving members of the Humboldt Broncos were on hand to accept the inaugural Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award on behalf of their head coach, Darcy Haugan, who was one of 16 people killed when the team’s bus collided with a truck while en route to a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoff game on April 6.

Victims and first responders from October’s mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and injured dozens more just over a week before the Golden Knights played their first-ever regular-season home game were also honoured.

And members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School hockey team, which won the Florida state title shortly after a gunman killed 17 people there on Feb. 14, also attended the event. Stoneman Douglas is located in Parkland, some 20 kilometres from the Panthers’ arena.