Not only is Florida the new state of hockey, it’s apparently the state of defensive hockey. Anthony Cirelli narrowly missed out on second place in Selke voting as he finished behind Aleksander Barkov (1,363 points) and Sam Reinhart (837 points). Cirelli garnered 828 points on the NHL’s 10-7-5-3-1 allocation system. His 29 first-place votes was tied for second with Reinhart, but they were a distant second as Barkov racked up 96 top votes. The voting for the best defensive forward is conducted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
The third-place finish was the highest of Cirelli’s career as the 27-year-old finished fourth in 2019-20 and fifth in 2021-22.