Masterton Trophy Nominees

Two players who spent the season fighting different battles just landed on the same National Hockey League award list. Philadelphia Flyers forward Garrett Wilson is this year’s Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy nominee from Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh Penguins forward Anthony Mantha has become one of the season’s strongest comeback stories after returning from a torn right anterior cruciate ligament. (nhl.com, nhl.com) The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is not a scoring title or a most valuable player award. The Professional Hockey Writers’ Association gives it each year to the player who best shows perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. (nhl.com) That makes the award different from most late-season hockey headlines. A player can be nominated for surviving a brutal injury, for returning after years outside the National Hockey League, or for staying in the sport when the easier path would have been to walk away. (nhl.com) Wilson’s case starts with the gap in his National Hockey League résumé. He made his return for Philadelphia on March 19, 2026 against the Los Angeles Kings, and that game was his first National Hockey League appearance since the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs with the Pittsburgh Penguins. (nhl.com) In between those two National Hockey League stops, Wilson did the kind of work that usually stays invisible outside minor-league cities. The 35-year-old spent the past six seasons with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the Flyers’ American Hockey League affiliate, before signing a two-way National Hockey League contract on March 5, 2026 and getting recalled on March 14. (nhl.com, nhl.com) His numbers show how long that road was. Wilson has played 754 American Hockey League games across five franchises, and he served as Lehigh Valley’s captain for the past three seasons before this call-up. (nhl.com, nhl.com) His National Hockey League record is tiny by comparison. Across a 15-year professional career, Wilson has appeared in 86 National Hockey League games with the Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Flyers, which is exactly why this nomination reads like a reward for endurance more than production. (nhl.com) Mantha’s path is the opposite shape. He already had years as an established National Hockey League scorer, but his 2024-25 season was cut down to 13 games after a torn right anterior cruciate ligament and knee surgery. (nhl.com, nhl.com) When Pittsburgh signed him on July 2, 2025, the contract looked like a low-risk bet on a player trying to prove he still belonged. The Penguins gave Mantha a one-year, $2.5 million deal after a season in which he worried he might need only a professional tryout just to stay in the league. (nhl.com) Instead of merely returning, Mantha rebuilt his value fast. As of April 8, 2026, his National Hockey League player page lists 78 games, 31 goals, 30 assists, and 61 points for Pittsburgh, which pushed him past his previous career highs in both goals and points. (nhl.com) That production changed the tone of his season from recovery story to major lineup piece. By mid-February, Pittsburgh’s team site noted that Mantha had already become the first free-agent signing to score 20 goals in his first season with the Penguins since Petr Sykora scored 28 in 2007-08. (nhl.com) The Masterton Trophy has a history of rewarding exactly these kinds of seasons. Recent winners include Sean Monahan in 2025, Kris Letang in 2023, Carey Price in 2022, and Oskar Lindblom in 2021, all players whose cases were tied to hardship, recovery, or resilience as much as on-ice output. (nhl.com) So even before finalists are announced, Wilson and Mantha give the award two very different versions of perseverance. Wilson’s story is about staying ready through a seven-year National Hockey League absence, while Mantha’s is about turning a torn ligament and a lost season into one of the best offensive years of his career. (nhl.com, nhl.com, nhl.com) With the regular season closing and playoff coverage tightening around stars, matchups, and standings, this award pulls attention toward the players who spent months proving they could simply get back here. In a sport that measures almost everything in goals, saves, and points, the Masterton still makes room for the harder-to-count part of a season. (nhl.com, nhl.com, nhl.com)