Filling in history's awards gaps with once-a-decade bonus trophies that I made up

We’re almost at the end of 2024, which means we’re almost half through the 2020s. That reminded me of a decades-based idea I’ve had kicking around for a while, and since I don’t have the patience to wait five more years, we’re doing it today.

What if, at the end of every decade, we went back over the last ten years’ of major award winners and gave out one bonus award to someone who’d deserved one but never won?

The idea would be simple enough, and it would annoy the sort of people who performatively complain about participation trophies, and those are both good things. So today, I’m going back to the 1980s to figure out who’d deserve the bonus trophy for four awards: The Hart, Norris, Vezina and Jack Adams. I’m not including the Selke because I feel like defensive play is too subjective, or the Lady Byng because it isn’t a real award, or the Mark Messier because I don’t want to doom anyone. But I think the big four should make for some fun arguments, so let’s do this.

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