Morning Skate: Certainty

Death, taxes, and Patrice Bergeron being a finalist for the Selke Trophy.

The NHL began announcing the finalists for its end-of-season awards on Tuesday, starting with the Patrice Bergeron Selke Trophy.

Bergeron is a finalist for the 12th season in a row, and won his fifth Selke Trophy last season.

Joining Bergeron as finalists are two new Selke faces: New Jersey’s Nico Hischier and Toronto’s Mitch Marner.

Hischier is a guy who has come into his own after being burdened with the weight of expectations due to his draft status, and Marner is someone whose offensive output often overshadows his all-around game.

It remains to be seen if Bergeron is once again affected by the “well he can’t win every year, that’s silly” bias that has afflicted him before.

The Calder Trophy finalists will be unveiled today, so the B’s won’t be involved there.

Around the league last night, the Panthers took a 1-0 series lead over Toronto with a 4-2 Game 1 win, while the Stars and Kraken were in the midst of a chaotic, six-goal (when I turned it off) first period as of putting this together Tuesday night.

With Break-Up Day over, we’re officially in “nothing happening” mode for the B’s for a while now, barring a surprise contract announcement or retirement news.

What’s on tap for today?

Today’s discussion topic

Many of you have already opined on this, but staying on theme — what’s your take on Bergeron’s future?

Many speculated that his on-ice actions after the Game 7 loss implied a pending retirement, but if he feels good physically, part of me thinks he won’t want to go out the way he did.

(I mean that not just as wanting to go out on top or anything, but in terms of being the captain of a team that flamed out so dramatically and in terms of his own performance in the series.)