Goaltender Carey Price, who backstopped the Montreal Canadiens to their best regular season in 26 years, was an historic four-time winner at the 2015 NHL Awards, held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Price captured the Hart Memorial Trophy as the most valuable player to his team, the Ted Lindsay Award for most outstanding player as selected by NHL players and the Vezina Trophy as the League’s top goaltender. He also accepted a previously-won honor, the statistics-based William M. Jennings Trophy as the goaltender (min. 25 GP) on the club allowing the fewest regular-season goals. Price and Chicago’s Corey Crawford are the 2014-15 winners, as the Canadiens and Blackhawks both allowed a League-low 189 goals.
Price is the first goaltender ever to sweep these four awards in the same season.
The 27-year-old native of Anahim Lake, B.C., led the NHL in wins (44), goals-against average (1.96) and save percentage (.933), becoming the first goaltender to pace the League in all three categories since Ed Belfour in 1990-91. He also surpassed the Montreal franchise record for wins in one season (42), set by Jacques Plante in 1955-56 and equaled by Plante in 1961-62 and Ken Dryden in 1975-76.
With Price appearing in 66 of their 82 regular-season contests, the Canadiens (50-22-10, 110 points) finished second in both the Eastern Conference and the League’s overall standings, compiling their highest points total since a 115-point campaign in 1988-89.
Price was a runaway choice in Hart voting by members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association, receiving 139 first-place votes and appearing on 155 of the 157 ballots cast. He collected 1,498 voting points to outdistance second-place Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals (888) and third-place John Tavares of the New York Islanders (739).