Sauve/Courtesy P-Bruins
Fresh off scoring 21 goals in his first full professional season with the Bruins’ Providence (AHL) farm club, Max Sauve was voted by his teammates as the Williams & Stuart Rookie of the Year.
Sauve was one one of five individual winners of year-end awards for the P-Bruins, who finished their regular season Sunday and did not qualify for the Calder Cup playoffs.
Veteran center Trent Whitfield, who didn’t debut until January due to injury, won three awards. His 18 goals and 36 points earned him the MetLife Auto & Home Most Valuable Player award through a vote of his teammates. Fans voted Whitfield the Hendricks Memorial Fan Appreciation Award and he was also selected as the Pawtucket Credit Union Community Service Award winner.
On defense, first-year pro Matt Bartkowski was named the Dunkin’ Donuts Best Defenseman, and Steven Kampfer won the Champion Windows Plus/Minus Award despite spending most of the season with Boston.
With 23 goals and 50 points, forward Jamie Arniel earned the Shaw’s Supermarkets Leading Scorer Award.
I think the hope of every Bs fan is that somehow Sauve and Seguin will line up together in the not to distant future. PC will have some big issue to clear up once the playoff dust settles (To Kaberle, or not to Kaberle for one) and one of those tasks will be to find the kind of talent that can play with Seguin (if indeed we are committed to this kid). We saw what a difference having Peverley along side Seguin made, players like Sauve will add to that if/when he’s ready.
Sauve will make the Bruins this fall a true sniper with speed now he just needs to grow into that 6’1″ frame and be a more consistent scorer. Can’t teach speed and hands all Max needs to do after gaining some muscle is learn to back check and be better defensively.
Mike, I’ll blog on that topic more once the season’s over. But obviously they’ll be in the mix for spots next year & the Bruins will let some vets walk.
MK
Matt, how close are guys like Sauve and Caron to being ready to stay with the big club and make meaningful contributions? Personally, I would have liked to see Caron stay with Boston for longer than he did this season. Not to gloss over the upcoming playoff slate by any means, but do you think that pending departures (i.e., Ryder, Recchi, etc.) might make room for some of the young guys to stick with the big club in 2011-12?