The Vancouver Canucks' surprising season has earned the team another award nod.
Patrik Allvin has been named as one of three finalists for the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award, alongside Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill and Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito.
The award is voted on by the 32 general managers themselves, as well as a panel of media and NHL executives. Voting takes place at the end of the second round of the playoffs, so playoff performance plays a role in the award.
Given the significant turnover in the Canucks' roster and the equally significant turnaround of the Canucks' fortunes on the ice, it makes a lot of sense that Allvin would get nominated for the award.
Allvin completely overhauled the team's defence corps, which, in combination with changes to the team's system from head coach Rick Tocchet, drastically improved the team's defensive results. He made savvy additions in free agency, such as Pius Suter and Teddy Blueger, to improve the team's bottom-six and smart moves on the trade market to add a veteran backup goaltender in Casey DeSmith and impactful playoff performers in Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm.
His best move may have been getting franchise forward Elias Pettersson locked up for eight years.
Allvin has stiff competition from Nill and Zito, whose teams have had sustained success and made it further in the playoffs than the Canucks, but he still has strong arguments in his favour.
The Jim Gregory Award has only been given out since 2010 but has been won once by a Canucks general manager: Mike Gillis in 2011.
