T he Penguins Ray Shero won the NHL General Manager of the Year Award – which is selected by each of the 30 club general managers and a panel that includes NHL executives and members of both the print and broadcast media.

This season Shero, 50, constructed one of the best teams of his seven-year tenure in Pittsburgh, as the Penguins finished the regular season with the top record in the Eastern Conference for the first time under his watch before advancing to the conference finals for the first time since 2009.

During the regular season the Penguins won their first Atlantic Division title since ’07-08, finishing with a 36-12 overall record while posting a franchise-best .750 points percentage.

Pittsburgh finished with the second-best regular-season record in the NHL behind only the Chicago Blackhawks due in part to the moves Shero made leading up to the NHL trading deadline.

With his team already firmly secured at the top of the Atlantic Division in late March, Shero made four significant trades that added a pair of former captains (Jarome Iginla and Brenden Morrow); a perennial 50-point scorer (Jussi Jokinen); and a rugged blueliner (Douglas Murray) without sacrificing a single player off his roster.

Shero also brought back a familiar face at midseason – signing free agent defenseman Mark Eaton, who had previously won a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 2009. With Eaton in the lineup the Penguins were 20-3 during the final two months of the season.

In total, 21 of the 28 players on Pittsburgh’s postseason roster were either drafted, traded for or signed by Shero and his top assistants, Jason Botterill and Tom Fitzgerald, while the other seven players all received contract extensions from Shero during their time as Penguins.