It took longer than it probably should have, but Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron has finally won his record fifth Selke Trophy.
The NHL announced on Sunday that Bergeron beat out Panthers center Aleksander Barkov and Flames center Elias Lindholm for this year’s Selke, which is awarded annually to the league’s best defensive forward, as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.
With his fifth win, Bergeron breaks a tie with Montreal’s Bob Gainey for the most Selke wins ever. Gainey won the award four straight years from 1978-81. Bergeron’s previous four wins came in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
This was the 11th straight year that Bergeron was one of the three finalists for the award, which extended his own record and surpassed Wayne Gretzky’s 10 straight top-three finishes for the Hart Trophy (league MVP) for the most consecutive top-three finishes for one award. Bergeron finished second in both 2020 (to Philadelphia’s Sean Couturier) and 2021 (to Barkov).
The voting wasn't even close. Bergeron got 160 of 195 first-place votes, and his 1,798 total points were more than double second-place Lindholm.
Bergeron had arguably the best defensive season of his career, and arguably the best defensive season any forward has had since advanced defensive metrics started to be tracked 15 years ago.
Among 379 forwards who played at least 500 minutes at 5-on-5 this season, Bergeron ranked first in Corsi-for percentage (65.6%), first in shots on goal share (67.3%), first in expected goals-for percentage (69.2%), first in Corsi against per 60 (40.2), first in expected goals against per 60 (1.51), first in Evolving-Hockey’s defensive rating (+8.9), and first in Evolving-Hockey’s expected defensive rating (+9.3). He also led the NHL in faceoff wins (991) and faceoff percentage (61.9%) and remained an excellent penalty-killer.
Bergeron’s heat map from HockeyViz below shows just how much he helps to completely shut down the middle of the ice in his own zone (all that blue in the bottom left image).
“I would say there’s a lot of new categories the nerds have come up with, and he keeps excelling in all of them,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said after the season. “Good for him. Every year there seems to be more metrics to be judged by, and that’s great that he continues to excel in all of them. It’s what he is. He’s a great defensive player, eye test or stats test. I think he passes them all.”
The 36-year-old Bergeron, who does not have a contract for next season, has still not announced whether he will retire or play a 19th season. Sunday served as a reminder that if he does retire, it certainly won’t be because he can’t play at a high level anymore.
Meanwhile, it would appear Bergeron had some sort of procedure done on his left arm after the season, based on a photo that was circulating around social media Sunday morning. Bergeron dealt with an infection in his elbow during the season; it's unclear if this is related.
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