2017 NCAA Patty Kazmaier Award Finalists Announced

2017 NCAA Patty Kazmaier Award Finalists Announced

USA Hockey announced the Patty K award finalists for 2017.

For those who are unfamiliar with this award, it's been awarded annually to the top NCAA player since 1998. Here is a partial list of past winners:

2003 Jennifer Botterill, Harvard

2004 Angela Ruggiero, Harvard

2007 Julie Chu, Harvard

2010 Vicki Bendus, Mercyhurst College

2011 Meghan Duggan, Wisconsin

2012 Brianna Decker, Wisconsin

2013 Amanda Kessel, Minnesota

2014 Jamie Lee Rattray, Clarkson

2015 Alex Carpenter, Boston College

2016 Kendall Coyne, Northeastern

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Ann-Renee Desbiens is a member of Team Canada and won silver at the 2015 World Championships. She was chosen as the starting goalie in the December Series (Canada vs US) in 2016. She has a staggering GAA of 0.69. To give you a comparison, the best GAA at the moment (from NHL, NWHL and CWHL combined) is 1.26. It's very rare for a goalie to play a full season and get a GAA below 1.00. Her SV% is 0.963 which is insanely high. The highest SV% at the moment (NHL/NWHL/CWHL) is 0.946. In the current season, she also broke the NCAA record for career shutouts (currently at 44) and the NCAA record for shutouts in a single season (currently at 21).

Let me repeat: She got 21 (!) shutouts this season, and she only played 30 games.

Although she was drafted by the NWHL Boston Pride in 2016, it's expected that she'll focus on the Olympics next season. She'll be battling for a spot on the Team Canada roster along with Szabados, Howe, Lacasse and Maschmeyer.

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Cayley Mercer hasn’t been on Team Canada since 2012 when she was in the U18 program. Since then, she’s spent five seasons in the NCAA at Clarkson University. She’s racked up an impressive 77 goals and 94 assists in 155 games played.

She was drafted by the NWHL Buffalo Beauts in 2016. Since she’s not expected to be part of Team Canada for the Olympics, she may be joining the NWHL next season.

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Lara Stadler has been a member of Team Switzerland from the U18 program, and recently helped Switzerland secure a spot at Pyeongchang 2018. She led the tournament with 8 goals and 4 assists. In the NCAA, she’s spent 4 years at the University of Minnesota Duluth where she’s racked up 53 goals and 92 assists in 131 games played.

She was drafted by the Boston Pride in 2016, but it’s expected that she’ll spend next season with Team Switzerland at the Olympics.