Three Washington Capitals forwards received consideration for the 2025 Selke Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s best defensive forward. Aliaksei Protas, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Nic Dowd all earned votes for their efforts during the 2024-25 campaign, where the Caps finished atop the Eastern Conference.
Panthers center Aleksander Barkov was named this year’s winner of the award, his second in a row and third overall. No Capitals player has won the Selke since Doug Jarvis took it home after the 1983-84 season.
The PHWA, which RMNB is not a part of, votes for the annual award.
Protas finished the highest of the three Caps players in 22nd, receiving two fourth-place votes and three fifth-place votes. The 24-year-old forward had a breakout season, recording 66 points (30g, 36a) in 76 games while taking up an integral role on the team’s penalty-kill unit and playing relatively zero ice time on their power play.
Dubois finished right behind Protas in 23rd with one second-place vote and one fifth-place vote. The 26-year-old pivot was used as head coach Spencer Carbery’s primary shutdown center, playing the tough minutes against the opposition’s top players. The Capitals dominated his five-on-five minutes, seeing 52.8 percent of shot attempts, 54.9 percent of expected goals, 55.8 percent of scoring chances, and 57.2 percent of high-danger chances.
Dowd ended up in 36th with two fifth-place votes. The 35-year-old fourth-line centerman set new career highs in goals (14) and points (27) despite starting just 11.6 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone. No player in the entire NHL, with a minimum 500 minutes of five-on-five ice time, started a smaller percentage of their shifts in the offensive zone.
Selke Trophy voting
| Rank | Player | Points | (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Aleksander Barkov, FLA | 1363 | (96-31-28-14-4) |
| 2. | Sam Reinhart, FLA | 837 | (29-36-42-24-13) |
| 3. | Anthony Cirelli, TBL | 828 | (29-49-21-25-15) |
| 4. | Nico Hischier, NJD | 477 | (11-19-30-21-21) |
| 5. | Jack Eichel, VGK | 256 | (5-12-12-16-14) |
| 6. | Leon Draisaitl, EDM | 235 | (1-18-11-11-11) |
| 7. | Mitch Marner, TOR | 177 | (3-5-12-10-22) |
| 8. | Anze Kopitar, LAK | 125 | (2-3-7-11-16) |
| 9. | Brandon Hagel, TBL | 115 | (3-5-4-7-9) |
| 10. | Adam Lowry, WPG | 115 | (3-4-4-9-10) |
| 11. | Jordan Staal, CAR | 108 | (5-1-3-8-12) |
| 12. | Seth Jarvis, CAR | 96 | (2-3-3-12-11) |
| 13. | Nick Suzuki, MTL | 28 | (0-1-2-2-5) |
| 14. | Auston Matthews, TOR | 22 | (1-0-2-0-2) |
| 15. | Alex Tuch, BUF | 20 | (0-1-0-3-4) |
| 16. | Marcus Foligno, MIN | 19 | (1-0-1-1-1) |
| 17. | Phillip Danault, LAK | 17 | (0-1-1-1-2) |
| 18. | Vincent Trocheck, NYR | 13 | (0-0-2-1-0) |
| 19. | Mark Stone, VGK | 11 | (0-1-0-1-1) |
| 20. | Sebastian Aho, CAR | 10 | (0-0-2-0-0) |
| 21. | Robert Thomas, STL | 10 | (0-0-1-1-2) |
| 22. | Aliaksei Protas, WSH | 9 | (0-0-0-2-3) |
| 23. | Pierre-Luc Dubois, WSH | 8 | (0-1-0-0-1) |
| 24. | Joel Eriksson Ek, MIN | 8 | (0-0-1-1-0) |
| 25. | Claude Giroux, OTT | 7 | (0-1-0-0-0) |
| t-26. | Warren Foegele, LAK | 6 | (0-0-0-2-0) |
| Dylan Holloway, STL | 6 | (0-0-0-2-0) | |
| Brayden Point, TBL | 6 | (0-0-0-2-0) | |
| t-29. | Nathan MacKinnon, COL | 5 | (0-0-1-0-0) |
| Logan O’Connor, COL | 5 | (0-0-1-0-0) | |
| t-31. | Sidney Crosby, PIT | 3 | (0-0-0-1-0) |
| Bo Horvat, NYI | 3 | (0-0-0-1-0) | |
| Elias Lindholm, BOS | 3 | (0-0-0-1-0) | |
| Sean Monahan, CBJ | 3 | (0-0-0-1-0) | |
| 35. | Mikael Backlund, CGY | 3 | (0-0-0-0-3) |
| 36. | Nic Dowd, WSH | 2 | (0-0-0-0-2) |
| t-37. | Quinton Byfield, LAK | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) |
| Roope Hintz, DAL | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) | |
| Jordan Kyrou, STL | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) | |
| Anton Lundell, FLA | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) | |
| Ilya Mikheyev, CHI | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) | |
| Evan Rodrigues, FLA | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) | |
| Pius Suter, VAN | 1 | (0-0-0-0-1) |
* (10-7-5-3-1 points allocation)
The NHL’s full press release is below:
Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov Repeats as Selke Trophy Winner
Florida Captain Honored in Special Surprise Trophy Presentation
NEW YORK (June 2, 2025) – Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov is the 2024-25 recipient of the Frank J. Selke Trophy, recognizing “the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game,” as selected by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
The Panthers’ captain was in a team meeting when he received the award in a special surprise presentation from several girls and boys from Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. The surprise also included his accepting the King Clancy Memorial Trophy.
A Selke finalist in four of the past five seasons, Barkov captured the award for the third time, following wins in 2020-21 and 2023-24. He joins Patrice Bergeron, Pavel Datsyuk and Rod Brind’Amour as back-to-back winners in the past quarter-century.
Barkov appeared on 173 of the 191 ballots and was the top choice on 96 for 1,363 voting points. Panthers teammate Sam Reinhart, a Selke finalist for the first time, finished second in voting with 837 points, including 29 first-place votes. Reinhart was followed closely by first-time Selke finalist Anthony Cirelli of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who also garnered 29 first-place votes in collecting 828 points.
Barkov and Reinhart are the first teammates ever to finish 1-2 in Selke Trophy voting. Overall, this marks the first time in 23 years that teammates have swept the top two positions for a voted NHL Award. In 2001-02 the top 2 vote-getters for the Norris Trophy were Nicklas Lidstrom and Chris Chelios (Detroit Red Wings), while the leaders for the Calder Trophy were Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk (Atlanta Thrashers).
Barkov helped the Panthers rank among the NHL’s top 10 clubs in goals-against per game (7th, 2.72), penalty-killing percentage (10th, 80.7%) and shots-against per game (5th, 26.2). He ranked fourth among NHL forwards in the puck possession metric SAT% (59.3%), with Florida accounting for 59.3% of all shot attempts 5-on-5 when Barkov was on the ice. The puck was in the offensive zone for 46.7% of the time Barkov was on the ice at even strength according to NHL EDGE tracking data, ranking in the 98th percentile among NHL skaters, and in the defensive zone for just 35.5% of the time (97th percentile).
