The 32 National Hockey League teams have announced their nominees for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, with Ottawa Senators goaltender Linus Ullmark among those up for the award.
The King Clancy Trophy is awarded to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.
Ullmark, 32, has had an up-and-down season that included a leave of absence due to mental health reasons that caused him to miss more than a month from Dec. 28 to Jan. 31.
“The real reason is mental health. And there’s been a lot going on for a long time. I would say dating back to, ever since the trade, and a lot of things have been positive as well throughout the years or these times. But a lot of the things that I had gone through or worried about hasn’t really been dealt with in the right way‚” Ullmark said of his leave in an interview with TSN’s Claire Hanna in January.
“One thing I have realized though during all these three weeks, there’s a lot of people that are hurting. I’ve had some really interesting, hard, tough, emotional, conversations with dear friends and people that I’ve seen throughout my career that have reached out to me and told me about their sufferings and what they have gone through and what they’ve done and what has helped them.
“Do I wish that me being open will help people? Yeah, at the end of the day it would be a nice thing. But it wasn’t my plan. My plan was to fix me.”
The Lugnvik, Sweden native has started 48 games this season, one off his career high with the Bruins in 2022-23, compiling a 27-12-8 record with a 2.78 goals-against average and .889 save percentage.
Calgary Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau, Edmonton Oilers’ Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki, former Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares, and Vancouver Canucks forward Brock Boeser were the other Canadian team nominees.
Florida Panthers’ captain Aleksander Barkov won the award last season
