Summers Takes Home Three Trophies, First All-VHL Team Honor

[kirbithan 1,368]

— Lachlan Summers on the VHL Awards red carpet

 

What an eventful offseason it was for HC Davos Dynamo netminder Lachlan Summers as he flew into Las Vegas, Nevada for the S90 VHL awards alongside his husband, sister, and mother. This was something he could have only dreamed of as a child growing up in Brisbane watching VHL highlights of goaltending greats, from the likes of Aidan Shaw and Greg Clegane to Xavier Booberry, whom Lachlan had backed up for in his rookie season with the Dynamo.

 

Coming into the awards ceremony, Lachlan had already secured a statistical award: the Greg Clegane Trophy, which was awarded to the goaltender who had the lowest goals against average. With Lachlan’s impressive 2.06GAA, he was able to top the statistical leaderboard for this season and win his first Clegane. He was also nominated for four other awards: the Scotty Campbell, Brett Slobodzian, Aidan Shaw, and Dustin Funk, and won two of the four, which will be summarized now. 

 

The first award was the Dustin Funk Trophy, awarded to the Most Improved Player, with nominees: Lachlan, Ryuji Sakamoto, Mac Atlas, Fred Hampton, and Jason. The Funk ended up going to Hampton with 9 of the BOG votes, with all other nominees receiving a single vote each. However, there were still more trophies to come!

 

Next was the Aidan Shaw Trophy, which was given to the VHL’s Best Goaltender and came down to its three nominees of Lachlan, Matt Murdock, and Merome Dilson. With his spectacular season and leading in all relevant goaltending stats that season, Lachlan earned all 13 votes and his second trophy of the evening!

 

The Scotty Campbell is awarded to the league’s Most Valuable Player, and its nominees included Lachlan, Todd Cooke, Jason, and Ronan Lavelle. With a close vote, Cooke was deemed the winner with 7 of the BOG’s votes, 5 going to Lachlan, and 1 to Jason. 

 

The final trophy here is the Brett Slobodzian, awarded to the league’s Most Outstanding Player, as voted by the members of the VHL, and the nominees were: Jake Thunder, Skor McFleury, Jason, Todd Cooke, and Lachlan. This time, the votes fell into Lachlan’s favor with 45, while the other four nominees combined for a total of 55 votes. 

 

Finally, Lachlan was also given the honor of being selected for the S90 First All-VHL team. It was a busy night for the Aussie netminder in just his fourth season as the starter for HC Davos Dynamo! He had bounced back from a lackluster S89 where he had some critics hot on his tail, but with his career-high S90 as well as the eighth-highest save percentage in VHL history, Lachlan is determined to build on this year and adapt to the new core of players that Davos had put together for S91. 

 

As of S91, Lachlan’s trophy case consists of the Stolzschweiger, Slobodzian, Clegane, Shaw, and the team awards of the Victory Cup and Continental Cup. It is evident that this Davos team is a force to be reckoned with as they have blown all expectations out of the water these past few seasons despite many always counting them out, only to be proving critics wrong again and again. Lachlan will make sure they continue to do so.

 

GO DAVID!

 

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