The SHL Awards
When the awards for this SHL season were dished out in May it was obvious that Växjö Lakers would be in the limelight in a year where they dominated both the regular season and playoff phase to lift the Le Mat Trophy.
Sam Hallam picked up best manager and Elias Pettersson made a clean sweep with MVP, Best Rookie, Best Forward and first in Total Points and will be starting the autumn at Vancouver Canucks who drafted him in 2017.
There are so many good things to say about this team. But perhaps two overlooked factors to their success are second keeper, Viktor Andrén who let in just one goal in four games against the some of the league's top scoring forwards in the final series. Of course, Hallam's philosophy has been develop a squad with a breadth of talent. So it should not be a surprise that this include the second man at the back. 24 year old Andrén had already started nearly half the matches this season and had played more games than his counterpart, Viktor Fasth, in the high pressure Champions Hockey League matches.
This season was also the making of back, Daniel Rahimi as he made the transition from bruiser to creator with a staggering Plus/Minus of 23, second in the whole league behind, who else, but Pettersson.
@ABritOnThinIce1
