It’s been less than a week since the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, and we’re already well into the NHL offseason. Teams are making trades, there’s a new franchise on the way, and we’re only a few days away from the entry draft and free agency. This is just how hockey works – there’s virtually no downtime between the end of one season and the start of the next.

That’s why it’s important to occasionally take a few moments to reflect. So today, let’s look back on the just completed year in the NHL and hand out some awards. Not the real hardware – that part’s also on the schedule for next week. Instead, we’ll make up a few of our own, to recognize the best and worst of a season that already feels like it’s fading into the distant past.

Breakout star of the year: Brent Burns

The Sharks defenseman has been one of the league’s better blueliners for years now. But he posted career-best numbers this season, earning a nod as a Norris finalist and a spot on Team Canada in the process. And he did it all while being… well, being Brent Burns. Which as it turns out, is a pretty interesting thing to be.

Whether it was the crazy beard or the Don Cherry-esque wardrobe or the solid soundbites or the whole Chewbacca thing at the all-star game, Burns emerged as a fun personality in a league that doesn’t have many. He may have flown under the radar for too long, thanks to West Coast start times. But the Sharks run to the Cup final put him solidly in the spotlight, and he embraced it.

And the hockey world embraced him right back … at least for now. No doubt, it won’t be long until Burns gets the PK Subban/Alexander Ovechkin treatment and we all start complaining about him being too eccentric or enigmatic or whatever other word we come up with. But for now, we can enjoy the presence of a star player who actually seems to enjoy the role.

Best trade (for both teams): the Phil Kessel deal

On the first day of free agency during last year’s offseason, the Leafs sent their best player to the Penguins in exchange for a package of picks and prospects. The deal ended the disappointing Kessel era in Toronto, and it didn’t take long for the knives to come out. Many felt the Leafs hadn’t got enough in return for a legitimate offensive star, while others worried that the Penguins had just gone all-in on a sullen, me-first distraction.

Less than a year later, the Pens are Stanley Cup champions largely thanks to Kessel, who led the team in playoff scoring. Meanwhile, the Leafs bottomed out, won the draft lottery, and will pick Auston Matthews with the top choice in next weekend’s draft. In a league where GMs are constantly complaining that it’s too hard to make a trade, the Leafs and Penguins managed to pull one off that worked out just about perfectly for both sides.

Kessel says he’s going to spend his day with the Stanley Cup in Toronto, by the way. Fair warning: If he poses for a photo with it next to a hot dog cart, the Internet will explode.

Worst injury: Carey Price

Not a tough call here. Price’s knee injury, one originally suffered in October and then worsened after a premature comeback, almost single-handedly destroyed the Canadiens’ season. The Habs had roared out of the gates with a lengthy winning streak, but losing Price flipped them from legitimate Cup contenders to league laughingstock in short order. And it made Montreal’s notoriously fickle fan base even more miserable than usual.

Then again, at least they had company…

Saddest country: Canada

No, it’s fine, go ahead and hold the playoffs without us. See if we care. We’ll just watch the NBA instead. At least there we’re always treated with the respect we deserve and never … dammit.

Best new rule: 3-on-3 overtime

The league’s new OT format wasn’t perfect, with plenty of games where it never clicked and fans were treated to pucks sliding helplessly down empty stretches of ice. But it worked often enough to accomplish its goal, producing more winners and fewer shootouts. And despite coaches worked fervently to find ways to kill off the excitement, the format produced some legitimately memorable moments. The NHL has a long history of creating new rules that don’t actually do anything, but they got this one right.

Worst new rule: Hiring compensation

Admit it, you were expecting to see the offside review here instead, weren’t you? There’s a good case to be made for it, especially after a rocky start to the playoffs that had fans fearing that the Cup would be won or lost based on a fraction of an inch. But the league lucked out, with the offside review fading into the background as the playoffs went on, so we’ll give it a pass here. [Spends ten minutes reviewing that pass on a tablet the size of a postage stamp.] Yep, call stands.

Instead, let’s go with a rule that’s already been mercifully killed off. At the end of last season, the NHL announced that it would introduce a standard system for draft pick compensation for teams that hired coaches or GMs away from other employers. It was something that teams had been requesting for years, and the league finally relented and gave it to them. But apparently nobody ready the fine print, because the league pulled a swerve and started awarding compensation even in cases where the new hire had been fired by his previous team (but was still under contract). That wasn’t the spirit of the rule that teams thought they were getting, but the league held its ground like an angry parent making a whiny child finish all the Halloween candy even it makes them sick.

The league finally agreed to drop the rule altogether, beginning in January. Be careful what you wish for, NHL teams.

Worst rebuild: the Edmonton Oilers/NHL.com (tie)

After their ninth straight year of misery, the Oilers won the draft lottery, picked the league’s next generational superstar in Connor McDavid, hired a new coach and front office, and went out and got a new starting goalie and number one defenseman. Then they went out and were somehow even worse relative to the rest of the league, dropping from 28th overall to 29th.

Meanwhile, the NHL launched a new design for its web site, one that they hailed as “clean”. Which it was, in the sense that it wasn’t messed up with any useful information.

This is a tough call. One key difference: The Oilers seem still seem to be at least vaguely trying to get better.

Strangest story: Dennis Wideman

Here’s what we know: On 27 January 2016, Wideman ran into linesman Don Henderson. That’s about it. The rest is up to interpretation. Did he do it on purpose? Did he realize who he was hitting? Was he even responsible for his actions, given that he’d appeared to suffer a concussion after receiving a hit just seconds earlier.

The league’s officials pushed for severe punishment, and the NHL delivered, suspending Wideman for 20 games. Wideman and the players’ association appealed. Commissioner Gary Bettman upheld his own league’s ruling. Wideman and the Flames were furious, and the appeals continued.

By the end, the story got so weird that it managed to warp the spacetime continuum, as Wideman’s 20-game suspension was reduced to ten games by an arbitrator after he’d already served all but one game of the original sentence. Hockey fans like to talk about records that will never be broken, like Gretzky’s 92 goals or Glen Hall’s 502 straight starts, but Wideman missing 19 games due to a 10-game suspension might be the most untouchable mark of all.

Best and also worst story: the John Scott debacle

The John Scott soap opera would probably need its own full post to explain, but here’s the short version: Scott is a veteran enforcer who forged an NHL career with his fists, despite a notable lack of skill. Early in the season, a segment of hockey fans decided it would be fun to try to vote Scott onto the all-star team. The movement gained steam, the league wasn’t happy, and Scott eventually won a spot on the roster.

Then he was traded. Then he was banished to the minors. Then the conspiracy theories started.

It all ended with the league relenting and allowing Scott to play, at which point he went out and scored two goals, earning MVP honors and literally being carried off the ice on his teammates’ shoulders. If that sounds like a cheesy Hollywood movie, well, it probably will be.

So was this a heartwarming recognition for a hard-working everyman? A tribute to the fading role of the NHL enforcer? A fan protest over how awful the all-star game is? A silly internet joke spun out of control? Cruel high school stuff, like voting the unpopular kid as homecoming king so everyone can point and laugh? All of the above? None of it? Some combination?

Nobody’s really sure, but we spent a good month talking about it endlessly. And I hope you enjoyed it, because we’ll no doubt get to do it all over again next year, when everyone tries to recreate the Scott story with some other player.

Best story that isn’t even technically a story yet: Expansion

In the worst kept secret of the year, the NHL is going to announce next week that they’re expanding to Las Vegas, as has been rumored forever. That might be a terrible idea, but it’s going to be all sorts of fun.

For one thing: it’s Vegas. Can the city support a team? Will the locals embrace it? Can you build a fan base around tourists getting comped from the casino tables? Nobody knows, but I think we can all agree that The Guardian needs to send a hockey writer to the city to find out. Preferably this weekend.

Beyond that, expansion means an expansion draft next summer, which means all sorts of maneuvering for NHL teams looking to protect their assets. That will be especially true for goaltenders, since teams will only be allowed to protect one. It could also impact contract signings, as teams try to make sure they have the right number of players locked in for the 2017-18 season.

Add it all up, and it’s going to be a lot of fun even if it turns out to be a horrible mistake. Which is pretty much Vegas in a nutshell, come to think of it.