NHL Awards: William M. Jennings Trophy is overrated

The William M. Jennings Trophy is probably the weirdest and most confusing of all of the NHL awards.

To start off with, William M. Jennings is a strange guy to name a goalie award after. He was just a New York lawyer, who presumably often gave legal advice to Madison Square Garden. In 1962, he became the president of the New York Rangers. He remained president until his death in 1981. Six years earlier, in 1975, he was elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

And, well, that’s about it. He seemed like a pretty good team president, overseeing some of the Rangers’ contending years, but he doesn’t have anything to do with goalies in particular. It’s not a huge deal, but a Terry Sawchuk or Johnny Bower award seems a lot more fitting. Anyways, bad names aside, what exactly is wrong with the William M. Jennings Trophy?

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For those of you who don’t what it is, don’t worry, because it’s not simple. At all. The trophy is supposedly awarded to “The goaltender(s) having played a minimum of 25 games for the team with the fewest goals scored against it … based on regular-season play.”

This actually used to be what the Vezina Trophy was. Eventually, the NHL came to its senses and realized that maybe this didn’t make much sense as the lone goalie award.

So, in 1981, the Vezina became what it is today, and the Jennings became the old Vezina. Nowadays, the Vezina is what the actual best goalie gets (that’s what it says, anyway) and the Jennings is a team award that is given to the goalie for some reason.

The reason the award even exists, combined with who it is presented to, makes it confusing and borderline pointless.

Flaws of the Jennings

Hopefully, the following is not too controversial of a statement. An award that is given to a goalie should reward a good goalie, right? Otherwise, why in the world is it given to goalies? On this level, the Jennings completely fails. This award would be a good one to give to a team, perhaps. Giving the award to the goalie, however, doesn’t really make sense at all.

Awarding a goalie for allowing the fewest goals is sort of like having a plus-minus award for players. If a goaltender with a high save percentage is on the worst defensive team in the league, they’re still going to allow the most goals and there’s nothing they can do about it. A player can’t really control their plus-minus, and a goalie can’t control their goals allowed as much as you might think.

Therefore, often inferior goalies will win the award because they had a better defense in front of them. However, this is not the only problem the trophy faces. Because of the weird way the trophy presentation is phrased, lucky backups are given the opportunity to piggyback on the starter, ripping an award out of the hands of superior starters.

You see, the Jennings actually rewards the team that allows the fewest goals, by giving the trophy to the goalie. But, because of the 25 games rule, goalie tandems often end up sharing the award, sometimes undeservingly.

In 2008-09, for example, Tim Thomas was fantastic for the Boston Bruins. He recorded a .933 save percentage through 54 games, winning the Vezina and the Jennings.

But what’s this? Manny Fernandez played 28 games, recording a .910 save percentage, so he gets to share the trophy with Thomas. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Fernandez is cool and all, but is he deserving of an award? Five goalies posted save percentages above .920 that season, but they didn’t win any awards. Why is this done?

Lastly, the existence of the Jennings actually robs the entire team of an award they all deserve. Even if you have the best goalie in the league, it’s unlikely that they alone can get your team to allow the fewest goals.

To allow the fewest goals, a team obviously needs talented defensive players, and a good goalie. The presentation of the Jennings completely ignores the team aspect of a good defense. In a team sport like hockey, unnecessary individual awards shouldn’t exist.

Sure, you can reward the top scorer or the top rookie, but these awards needn’t exist for the sake of existing. The Jennings, as it is, does exactly this. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be fixed.

How to fix the Jennings

As mentioned a few times here, the Jennings is clearly meant to be a team award. To hand it out, you don’t even have to look at save percentage or even goals against average. All you have to do is look at which team allowed the fewest goals.

So, my proposal is that the William M. Jennings should be made a team award. Again, allowing the fewest goals is a team effort, and this should be recognized.

Instead of being awarded to the goalie, it should be treated like the Stanley Cup, Prince of Wales Trophy, Clarence S. Campbell Bowl and Presidents’ Trophy, in that it is awarded to the team instead of a single player. Maybe in the process, the name can be changed to the Nicklas Lidstrom Award, or something.

However, if a defensive award exists, then why not an offensive award? Along with the Nicklas Lidstrom Award, the NHL should also reward the team that scores the most goals. Maybe something like the Mario Lemieux Award.

Wouldn’t this be fun in the future? In 50 years, fans could go and look for the teams that won the Lemieux and the Lidstrom Awards in the same year. Wouldn’t this be so much better than the fake goalie award that exists today?

As of right now, the Jennings is just a boring and easy-to-laugh-at hunk of metal, that has the opportunity to be a lot more.