2023 Lady Byng Trophy winner debated by NHL.com

The 2023 NHL Awards will be held at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on June 26 (8 p.m. ET; TNT, SN, TVAS). Eleven award winners will be announced during the ceremony, with the winner of the General Manager of the Year award set to be announced during the 2023 Upper Deck NHL Draft in Nashville on June 28.

In the lead-up to the events, NHL.com writers will debate who they think should win most of the awards. Today, senior writer Dan Rosen and staff writers Derek Van Diest and Tom Gulitti debate the Lady Byng Trophy, which is given annually to the player voted best to combine sportsmanship, gentlemanly conduct and ability as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

The three finalists this year are Brayden Point of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings and Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils.

Rosen:I've made the case at times for Kopitar to win this award, but I've changed my mind. It's Hughes. It has to be Hughes. Nobody exemplified what this award is about better than the Devils center did this season. He plays the game the right way, hard and direct but never over the line. He is hit way more than he hits, and yet Hughes always retaliates the right way, by burning his opponents on the scoreboard. Nobody had more points with fewer penalty minutes than Hughes did. He had 99 points (43 goals, 56 assists), which was tied for 12th in the League, and six penalty minutes. Six. That's it. Three minor penalties. He was assessed one for goalie interference against the Ottawa Senators on Nov. 10, one for high-sticking against the San Jose Sharks on Jan. 16, and one for hooking against the New York Islanders on March 27. But Hughes' high standard of play never changed. It was consistent across all 78 games he played. This should be Hughes' hardware.

Van Diest:The Lady Byng Trophy was created for a player like Kopitar. The Kings captain is the epitome of sportsmanship combined with a high standard of play, and at the age of 35, Kopitar led Los Angeles with 74 points (28 goals, 46 assists) in 82 games this season while committing just two minor penalties. The first one was for tripping 38 seconds into a game against the Washington Capitals on Oct. 22, and the second was also a tripping call against the Montreal Canadiens on Dec. 10. Kopitar then had 49 points (20 goals, 29 assists) and zero penalty minutes in his final 52 games to help the Kings qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And if that's not enough to convince you Kopitar should win the Lady Byng, consider this: the forward's four penalty minutes were 12 fewer than he had when he won the award in 2015-16.

Gulitti:Dan and Derek make compelling cases for Hughes and Kopitar, but consider the fact that Point scored more goals than both of them, leading Tampa Bay with an NHL career-high 51, and had more points than Kopitar with an NHL career-high 95. And the Lightning forward did this while taking just one minor penalty -- for slashing against the Carolina Hurricanes on Nov. 3 -- which was fewer than both Hughes and Kopitar. Point went the final 71 games without being assessed a minor, getting 84 points (46 goals, 38 assists) during that span. That's as good as it gets as far as excelling while playing within the rules. Now, Point did finish with seven penalty minutes this season because of a fighting major against Michael Eyssimont of the San Jose Sharks on Feb. 7, which some might argue makes him less deserving of the Lady Byng, but Point, who had scored two goals earlier in that game, was simply standing up for himself after Eyssimont (who was traded to Tampa Bay on March 1) whiffed on an attempted hit, grabbed him, and tried pull off his helmet. In that case, he was not the one who showed poor sportsmanship.

Rosen:Nice try, Tom, but a fighting major should immediately eliminate a player from winning the Lady Byng, at least under my parameters. Point is still deserving of being a finalist and he was, as you said, defending himself. Still, it's a fighting major, one more than Hughes and Kopitar had combined this season. Hughes is still my pick, even after the strong case Derek made for Kopitar. It's the way he plays that drives me to stick with him in this argument. He's smooth, super skilled, elusive, rarely in the muck that can lead to unnecessary penalties, trash talk or anything of the sort. He has the puck all the time, so he's always the one that opponents are trying to hit and rarely trying to lay the hit himself. He's not a perimeter player, though. Far from it. Hughes gets into the dirty areas, but he does it with grace and he does it quickly. He's in and out, typically with the puck on his stick or off his stick and into the back of the net. And what Hughes did for the Devils this season is, in my opinion, greater than what Kopitar did for the Kings or Point for the Lightning. He was the driver of a team that improved by 25 wins and 49 points in the standings, and he did it the right way.

Van Diest: Dan, I'm not convinced that a fighting major for defending yourself should automatically eliminate a player from the conversation, and in my opinion, both Point and Hughes are worthy candidates. They are both very skilled offensive players, but we can't forget there is another side to the game. Kopitar is widely considered one of the best two-way forwards in the NHL, and in the Western Conference First Round against the Edmonton Oilers, Kopitar was often lined up against Connor McDavid and did not take a penalty against him. He also had seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games in the series. Although the playoffs are not considered when it comes to the voting, that example helps illustrate Kopitar's accomplishments this season. He was a strong defensive player who only took two minor penalties, which is not easy to do, especially when considering he was matched up against opponents' top lines all season. Kopitar finished with a plus-20 rating -- Hughes was plus-10 and Points was plus-2 - and he also had 68 hits, 87 blocks and 46 takeaways. What Kopitar did on the defensive side of the puck without taking penalties is what makes him the proper choice to win the Lady Byng.

Gulitti: At least Derek sees things my way concerning Point's fighting major. And though I agree with him about Kopitar being one of the best two-way forwards in the NHL, that point might be better suited to a debate about who should win the Selke Trophy. Point might not be at Kopitar's level defensively, but he is a pretty well-rounded player who, like Kopitar and Hughes, was pivotal to his team's success this season. Point led the Lightning and was tied for fifth in the NHL with nine game-winning goals. He was also tied for third in in the NHL in power-play goals (20) and was tied for seventh in even-strength goals (31). On a team filled with other stars such as Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilevskiy, Point had never previously been a finalist for an NHL award, but he deserves this recognition.