UFHL Celebrates Successful Season With Player Awards, Royals’ Huberdeau Named MVP

The Ultimate Fantasy Hockey League handed out their hardware for the 2021-22 season today, following the NHL Awards ceremony.

The UFHL mirrors most of the NHL awards — albeit based on fantasy point production and with different names — but also has a handful of unique awards that don’t exist in the real world. UFHL Commissioner Andrea Charanduk announced the winners on Twitter.

With Rock Republic leading the Grizzlies in the Klein Cup Final for the playoff championship, the focus shifted back to regular season success for individual players and franchises. The playoff MVP — now known as the Yzerman Sakic Trophy, our version of the Conn Smythe Trophy — is still to be determined, awarded to the player who produces the most fantasy points throughout the Klein Cup Playoffs. Connor McDavid remains the leader there but Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy are within striking distance in the Stanley Cup Final.

The regular season MVP was something of a surprise, with Jonathan Huberdeau of the Royals winning the Wayne Gretzky Trophy — edging out McDavid of the Yetis and Auston Matthews from Blades of Steel — after receiving the most votes from UFHL franchises. Huberdeau, who finished as the runner-up in regular season fantasy points (430 to McDavid’s 459), led the Royals to the Founders’ Trophy — the UFHL’s regular season title for topping the standings. Matthews was third in fantasy points (412, among six players topping 400 points) but Huberdeau was a worthy winner in terms of “most valuable player to their franchise.” He took another big leap in taking the Royals to the top of the league, along with Matthew Tkachuk (407) and Alex Ovechkin (366) as their top-three producers.

McDavid and Matthews didn’t win that Hart Trophy equivalent but did earn the Art Ross and Rocket Richard honours, respectively. McDavid won the Mario Lemieux Trophy for the most fantasy points during the regular season (459), while Matthews took home the Brett Hull Trophy for recording the most fantasy points from goals (158).

The other award that was previously announced following the regular season saw Andrei Vasilevskiy and Anton Forsberg of the Titans claim the Bower Sawchuk Trophy (Jennings equivalent) for most fantasy points from a goaltending tandem (373).

The more prestigious goaltending award — our version of the Vezina, known as the Dominik Hasek Trophy — went to Jacob Markstrom of the Gators for the most fantasy points by a goaltender (298). Juuse Saros of the Outlaws (293) was the runner-up and Igor Shesterkin of Red Army (292) rounded out the top three among UFHL netminders this season.

As for the defenders, Roman Josi of the Crypto Knights won the Nicklas Lidstrom Trophy (Norris equivalent) for the most fantasy points by a defenseman (389) ahead of Cale Makar of the Titans (369) and Victor Hedman of the Mystics (362).

The UFHL also has an award for the top defensive D, the Chris Pronger Trophy, which went to MacKenzie Weegar of the Titans for the most fantasy points from blocks, takeaways and +/- rating (63). Jacob Trouba of Kamikaze and Chris Tanev of the Tornadoes were the runners-up there (both 57).