NHL Analyst Advocates Renaming Lady Byng Memorial Trophy After Johnny Gaudreau

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Joshua Deeds
September 2, 2024 (10:32)

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It's been more than a few days since Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau's lives have been stolen from the world. People are still operating on their raw emotions, and mourning will continue.

While we await an update on the driver who struck the Gaudreau brothers and learns where he will end up in the future, we also will see the NHL season uptick soon. In the next few weeks, training camp will start, and Johnny Hockey will be absent from the Blue Jackets lineup.

Gaudreau will undoubtedly be a topic to discuss, as it remains unresolved. NHL Insider David Alter has proposed an interesting idea and has Gaudreau's legacy in the league.

On "X", David Alter proposed changing the name of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy in honor of Johnny Gaudreau.

The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy is given out yearly to the NHL player who exemplifies "Sportsmanship and Gentlemanly Conduct" in conjunction with a "high standard of playing ability". That sounds like Gaudreau, given the testimony we've heard this weekend.

Gaudreau himself won the award in 2017, the only NHL award he's won in his career.

At age 23, in 2017 with the Calgary Flames, he only received two minor penalties secured the Trophy, and led the Flames in points with 61 points( 18 G, 43 A).

The idea would be a great honor for Gaudreau, as the award was originally named after Marie Evelyn Morton, Wife of Viscount Byng of Vimy. The couple were huge fans of the Ottawa Senators and donated the trophy to the league, which the league would hand the award out for the first time to Frank Nighbor of the Senators in 1925.

It seems to be an utterly forgotten award, and most NHL players and members of NHL media vote for the winner. Typically the winner had the fewest penalties in the regular season.

If they were to rename the Trophy after Gaudreau, perhaps it would re-establish its relevancy in the league once again.