Perry is a genuine MVP

By HELENE ELLIOTT

June 23, 2011 12 AM PT

Corey Perry is what hockey commentators call abrasive, an agitator. Opponents use words that can’t be shared in polite company, yet they always welcome his fierceness when they’re united by national or All-Star colors.

But hockey is not a polite game and the Ducks right wing played it this season with a new edge and excellence.

Perry, 26, led the NHL with 50 goals and collected a career-best 98 points while lifting the Ducks to fourth place in the West. Center Ryan Getzlaf struggled with injuries and others stumbled, but Perry consistently gave more than anyone knew he had.

Still, his surprise was genuine Wednesday when he won the Hart trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player, beating out NHL scoring champion Daniel Sedin of Vancouver and Tampa Bay veteran Martin St. Louis and becoming the Ducks’ first Hart winner.

He choked up during his acceptance speech at the league’s awards show in Las Vegas, a welcome human touch on a night dotted with irrelevant musical acts, bad jokes and embarrassing mispronunciation of winners’ names by presenters famous for being famous.

“You don’t know what to expect when you come to this thing,” Perry said by phone. “You don’t want to expect to win. But then you hear your name.

“I thought I had a great chance, but you look at the other two guys and they had great chances as well.”

Critics saw only his late scoring spree -- he had 25 goals and 47 points in the Ducks’ final 30 games, including 15 goals in 14 games in March -- but he carried the Ducks through crises of goaltending, defense and confidence. And he wasn’t a slouch in the first half. After a slow start he hit a point-a-game pace in October and November, then slowed but found a new level in February and couldn’t be stopped.

“It’s a long season and you have a lot of things go through your mind,” said Perry, who earned 1,043 points in voting by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Assn., to Sedin’s 960. “I have to give a lot of credit to my teammates.”

He shared the celebration with teammates Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan, his mom and dad and his 88-year-old grandmother Dorothy Perry. According to Ducks publicist Alex Gilchrist, as reporters pressed Perry for comments and photos, he made a priority to take care of Dorothy and get her a chair when she was on her feet too long. He also took care of his childhood friends. The Ducks offered to fly him to Las Vegas first class but he declined so he could sit in coach with six buddies, some of the 35 people he wanted there to enjoy his success.

For Perry, also voted to the first all-star team, the big question is how to top this

“You look forward to doing it all over again,” he said. “You try to build on the year before and move forward.”

It was also a big night for Boston’s Tim Thomas, who won the Vezina trophy as best goaltender and became the first man since Bernie Parent in 1975 to win the Vezina, the Conn Smythe as MVP of the playoffs and the Stanley Cup in one season. Detroit defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, still majestic at 41, won the Norris trophy as the top defenseman for the seventh time and got his 10th first-team all-star honor. Ducks defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, fourth in Norris voting, made the second all-star team.

The Kings’ lone winner was Dustin Brown, who got the NHL Foundation Award for enriching the lives of people in his community. His work with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and KaBoom, a nonprofit that builds playgrounds for kids, is worthy of applause.

“I don’t do it to win things like this. I do it because it’s an honor to do it,” Brown said.

Like Perry, Brown is no gentle soul on the ice. Both find meaning beyond the gruffness and physicality their jobs demand. The honor is ours to have them here.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

twitter.com/helenenothelen

BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

Other trophy winners

VEZINA

(goaltender) -- Tim Thomas, Boston

NORRIS

(defenseman) -- Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit

CALDER

(rookie) -- Jeff Skinner, Carolina

SELKE

(defensive forward) -- Ryan Kesler, Vancouver