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Canucks’ Elias Pettersson captures Calder Trophy

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Elias Pettersson of the Vancouver Canucks wins the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas.

For just the second time in NHL history, a member of the Vancouver Canucks has won the Calder Trophy. Elias Pettersson followed in the footsteps of Pavel Bure when he was handed the award during Wednesday’s NHL Awards show in Las Vegas. The award is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association and given “to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League.”

Pettersson dominated the rookie scoring race with 28 goals and 66 points in 71 games. The next best rookie was Brady Tkachuk with 45 points. Due to that, Pettersson was the only forward to be included among the finalists. The other two nominees were Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and Blues goalie Jordan Binnington.

Forwards tend to walk away with this award. Seven of the last eight winners have been forwards with the lone exception being Aaron Ekblad in 2015. The last goaltender to win the Calder was Steve Mason in 2009.

Pettersson couldn’t have asked for a better start to the campaign. He had five goals and eight points in his first five contests and 10 goals through 10 contests. Obviously he didn’t maintain that pace, but he didn’t fade away entirely as the campaign continued either. Some of his highlights included a five-point game on Dec. 9 and a hat trick on Jan. 2.

Here are the full results of the vote:

CalderTrophy

Ryan Dadoun is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @RyanDadoun.