Matt Moulson a Lady Byng Finalist

Matt Moulson is a finalist for the Lady Byng trophy for the second season in a row.

The award annually honors players who are good at hockey and remarkably tolerant of tools who are not good at hockey doing stupid things to try to get such players to be less good at hockey. But these finalists, they look the other way while Otts ott and Cookes cooke.

Er, officially the award is for the player "adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability."

The other finalists are Patrick Kane (no hint of irony there) and Martin St. Louis, so Moulson probably doesn't have a chance.

But Moulson, a Cornell grad, is surely a sporting chap and a fine gentleman as well as a doggone good winger. He scored 30 or more goals in three consecutive seasons, and in this lockout-shortened season he scored 15 -- not exactly a 30-goal pace, though if given a full season it's not crazy to think his pace and shooting percentage would have caught back up to his standard as an Islander.

His 44 points and 154 shots were each second on the team to some John Tavares guy, who is a finalist for that pity award known as the Hart Memorial Trophy.

Moulson must have had a rough week in early February: He got all four of his 2013 PIM in two games, with one minor against the Devils and another two games later against the Rangers.

Oh, but then all decorum went out the window in the playoffs, where Moulson closed Game 1 by receiving a 10-minute misconduct (along with teammates Travis Hamonic and Casey Cizikas and opponents Jarome Iginla, Pascal Dupuis and Douglas Murray) in the scrum after Marty Reasoner's hit on Jussi Jokinen. Naughty naughty.

In four seasons as an Islander (including the lockout-asterisk-heavy 2013), Moulson has a whopping 50 PIM (though just 10 over the last two seasons), to go with 112 goals. And his 214 points are tied with Mark Parrish for 32nd on the all-time Islanders list.

Next stop on that: Mikko Makela.