The Ottawa chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association has unanimously nominated Senators’ forward David Perron for the 2025 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. This award features one nominee from all 32 teams and is given to the player who best exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.
Reason for Perron’s Nomination
After signing a two-year, $8 million deal with the Senators last summer, the beginning of the 36-year-old’s tenure in Ottawa was met with plenty of adversity off the ice. Perron took an indefinite leave of absence on Oct. 22 as him and his wife, Vanessa Vandal, welcomed their fourth child, Elizabeth, on Oct. 27. Upon her birth, Elizabeth required immediate surgery to remove a mass on her right lung, which was discovered in August during Vandal’s pregnancy.
Perron missed 11 games while making sure the situation with his newborn stabilized before suffering a back injury that kept him out for two months until late January. Perron has registered 16 points in 40 games this season and has helped guide the Senators to their first playoff berth since 2017. The 2019 Stanley Cup champion credits the Senators for standing by him during a rough first few months in the nation’s capital.
“Having both (the illness and new home) at once, if I’d been with my old team or in St. Louis, where I had been for many years, it would have been different. You don’t feel like you have to establish yourself in the locker room and the role you’re going to have to be effective,” said Perron, in an interview with The Ottawa Citizen. “I know there is one nominee per team every year and, without the support of the organization, ex-teammates, parents, and family, it forms you into who you are. It’s a great honour.” (From ‘Ottawa Senators winger David Perron nominated for Masterton Trophy’ – The Ottawa Citizen, 4/9/2025)
If Perron is awarded the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, he will be the third Senator to receive this honour. Goaltender Craig Anderson won the award in the 2016-17 season and forward Bobby Ryan took the award home following the 2019-20 season.
Perron was brought to Ottawa to help excel the team’s rebuild and provide a veteran presence that the younger guys in the dressing room could lean on for leadership. With Ottawa clinching a playoff berth on Tuesday (April 9), it appears the Sherbrooke, Quebec native has fulfilled both tasks. After a very trying and difficult start to his Sens career, Perron’s perseverance and dedication to the game and his teammates, he is certainly a worthy Masterton trophy nomination.
