Vasilevskiy, Hellebuyk, Rask chosen as NHL Vezina finalists

Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning has been selected as a Vezina Trophy finalist for the third consecutive season, with a shot at becoming the first back-to-back winner of the NHL’s top goalie award in 12 years.

Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyk and Boston’s Tuukka Rask rounded out the list of finalists released on Friday following a vote by the league’s general managers.

Vasilevskiy finished with an NHL-leading 35 wins, which included a 21-game stretch in which he went 19-0-2, and closed the season going 21-5-1 over his final 27 starts. He was a first-time Vezina winner last year, and finished third in the vote in 2018.

New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur, in 2007 and ’08 was the last repeat winner.

Rask finished with a 26-8-6 record, led the NHL with a 2.12 goals-against average and finished second with a .929 save percentage. Rask, who won the Vezina in 2014, and Jaroslav Halak teamed to win the William Jennings Trophy in having the Bruins allow the fewest goals this past season.

Hellebuyk went 31-21-5 in leading goalies in shots faced (1,796), saves (1,656), minutes played and six shutouts. He accounted for 31 of Winnipeg’s 37 wins, and went 10-1-2 in games he faced 37 or more shots. From Michigan, Hellebuyk is a second-time Vezina finalist after finishing second in 2018.

The NHL also announced three finalists for the Willie O’Ree Community Hero award, given to an individual who has positively impacted their community through hockey.

The finalists are: Dampy Brar of Calgary, Alberta, where he co-founded Apna Hockey, which supports South Asian hockey players; Alexandria Briggs-Blake of Oxon Hill, Maryland, where she led a fund-raising effort to build a new arena for the Tucker Road Ducks, a predominantly African American hockey team; and John Haferman of Columbus, Ohio, who co-founded the Columbus Ice Hockey Club, which has brought hockey to more than 30,000 under-privileged and disabled children over the past three decades.