Bruins' Patrice Bergeron Calls Selke Trophy Nomination 'Another Huge Honor'

BOSTON — Bruins center Patrice Bergeron is the best two-way forward in the NHL. Therefore, his nomination for the Frank J. Selke Trophy, awarded annually to the league’s best defensive forward, was the least surprising storyline to come out of the recent award announcements.

“It’s definitely another huge honor,” Bergeron said Thursday at TD Garden. “It always speaks about the way that your team helps you and by the way that you’re trying to play the game. For myself, I take a lot of pride in my two-way game. It’s definitely special to be nominated with two great players like Anže (Kopitar) and Jonathan (Toews).

This is the fourth consecutive season that Bergeron has been a Selke finalist. He won the award in 2011-12 and 2013-14, and finished as the runner-up to Toews in 2012-13.

In addition to being one of the league’s premier puck possession players despite difficult zone starts and assignments against opponents’ top lines, Bergeron was the best faceoff forward this season. He led all players in faceoffs won and faceoff percentage.

“It was definitely a first this year, the amount of faceoffs that I was taking,” Bergeron said. “I wouldn’t say overall, but more in my zone — in the defensive zone, I was taking a lot and really starting a lot of my shifts there, which is fine. It’s definitely something that I like to do, and it’s a good challenge to go back on the offense and try to create some offense out of it.

“So it was definitely different when David (Krejci) went down, and even when Dave was playing wing with me — that’s definitely something that I had to do more, sometimes taking draws also for other lines, but at the end of the day, it’s part of my job. I have to do it to the fullest and make sure I win the faceoffs when I’m asked to do that.”

The Selke Trophy winner will be announced Wednesday, June 24, during the 2015 NHL Awards ceremony in Las Vegas.