Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, St. Louis Blues center Ryan O’Reilly and ... Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews are the finalists for the 2019-20 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, given to the players with "the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct."

A few things about the Lady Byng:

1. The PHWA shouldn't vote on it. The NHLPA and/or NHL officials should, because they have the context and can give this award value. This is obvious, has been obvious and will be obvious until it happens.

2. My ballot, in alphabetical order so data scrapers can't use this information to predict the heralded Lady Byng:

Nathan MacKinnon
Brayden Point
Jaccob Slavin
Ryan Suter
Teuvo Teravainen

3. Slavin played close to 1,600 minutes in a shutdown role and had 10 PIM. Since 1954, one defenseman has captured the Lady Byng (Brian Campbell, 2012). This is absolutely insane. But hey, at least we got Auston Matthews in there. Gotta have that.

Like, what are we doing? Why invite this? It's such a nothing award.