Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin has won the 2024 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, making history in the process.
The NHL announced Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin is the winner of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for the 2023-24 season.
The trophy is awarded to the player with the best "sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability." Members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association voted for this award.
Slavin,30, beat Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews and Vancouver Canucks forward Elias Pettersson for the award. All three players had strong cases to come out victorious, but in the end, Slavin was deemed the NHL's most gentlemanly player.
Slavin won by a rather large margin as well. The left-shot defenseman secured an impressive 81 first-place votes. Matthews, who finished third in total voting points, had the second most first-place votes with 24. Pettersson, who finished second in total voting points, had 13 first-place votes.
This is Slavin's second Lady Byng Trophy win. He also won the award for the 2020-21 season. He almost won during the 2021-22 campaign, finishing second.
Slavin made some NHL history by picking up his second Lady Byng Trophy. He has become only the second U.S.-born player to win multiple Lady Byngs, joining Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Mullen. He is also only the second defenseman in NHL history to win the award at least twice. The first defenseman to do this was legend Red Kelly.
Slavin deserves this win, as he had a great season and was incredibly clean. In 81 games, he had six goals, 37 points, and a plus-21 rating. He also had only eight penalty minutes, the lowest among all players with at least 1,600 minutes of playing time this season. It was also the fourth time in his career that he had under 10 penalty minutes in a season.
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