With just four teams left, the battle for the Conned Smythe Award is really heating up.
Yes, that’s the “Conned” Smythe, not to be confused with the far less prestigious Conn Smythe for playoff MVP. The Conned Smythe is a team award. Specifically, it goes to the team that made the dumbest trade with the biggest impact on the Stanley Cup winner. That trade could have been recent or a decade ago, but it had to have directly delivered a player who’s about to help the team win it all. (Deals for future picks and non-trade transactions are ineligible, a rule we passed because Wild fans were already sick of hearing about the Brayden Point thing.