Hurricanes’ Aho chosen team MVP; Burns honored by teammates in end-of-season awards
Brent Burns, Sebastian Aho, Jordan Martinook and Antti Raanta have earned or been nominated for top awards given the Carolina Hurricanes skaters each season.
Sunday, Burns learned he’d been selected by his teammates as the winner of the 2022-23 Steve Chiasson Award.
The Steve Chiasson Award is given annually to the Hurricanes player that shows “determination and dedication while proving to be an inspiration to his teammates.”
Burns, 38, finished the regular season with 61 points — including 18 goals — in 82 games with Carolina this season, the most by a Hurricanes defenseman in a season. Burns’ 18 goals tied him with teammate Brady Skjei for the most of any Hurricanes defenseman in 2022-23, and both players tied Dougie Hamilton for the most by a defender in a single season since the team moved to North Carolina.
Burns also didn’t miss a game this season, the eighth time in his career he’s played in all 82 games in a season. He has now played 761 consecutive games dating back to Nov. 21, 2013, the ninth-longest ironman streak in NHL history and the second-longest ironman streak by a defenseman. He joins Manny Malhotra (2013-14) and Bryan Bickell (2016-17) as the third player to win the Chiasson Award in his first season with the Hurricanes.
Aho, Raanta and Martinook earned team awards voted on by the Carolina chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. Aho was named team MVP, Raanta was awarded the Josef Vasicek Award for media cooperation, and Martinook was the Carolina PHWA nominee for the NHL’s Masterton Trophy, which is given annually to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey.
Aho, 25, finished the regular season with 67 points in 75 games, reaching the 60-point mark for the fifth time. He has opened his career with seven consecutive 20-goal campaigns, joining Ron Francis (1981-88) as just the second player in franchise history to accomplish the feat.
Aho also led the team with 41 points on the road, and scored six of his team-high nine game-winning goals away from home, tied for the third-most road winners of any NHL skater. Two of his career-high three hat tricks also came on the road.
Aho has now been named the Hurricanes’ MVP in five of the past six seasons. He has posted 468 points in 520 NHL games since debuting with Carolina in 2016-17.
Raanta won the award formerly known as the Good Guy Award, which was renamed in 2012 by the Carolina PHWA in honor of Vasicek, a former Hurricanes forward who died in a plane crash in Russia in September 2011.
Raanta, 33, posted a 19-3-3 record, 2.23 goals-against average, .910 save percentage and four shutouts in 27 appearances with the Hurricanes in 2022-23. His GAA is his lowest in any season with at least 15 games played, and his four shutouts matched his career high, set with the Rangers in 2016-17.
Raanta also earned a point in 17 consecutive decisions from Nov. 17-April 4 (15-0-2), becoming just the seventh NHL goalie since 1996-97 to accomplish that feat within a single season.
Martinook was selected earlier in the week by the local chapter pf the PHWA to represent the Hurricanes in national Masterton Trophy voting. Martinook, 30, recorded 34 points in 82 games with Carolina this season. The forward was one of just six Hurricanes skaters to play all 82 games, often playing with bumps and bruises along the way.
Martinook set new career highs in assists, points, even-strength points (32) and plus/minus (+7), and he scored his second career hat trick against St. Louis on Dec. 1. He reached the 30-point mark for the first time in his NHL career, becoming one of just five players in franchise history to post their first-ever 30-point season after turning 30. Martinook has 165 points in 559 career games with Arizona and Carolina since 2014.
This story was originally published April 16, 2023 at 8:42 PM with the headline "Hurricanes’ Aho chosen team MVP; Burns honored by teammates in end-of-season awards."