The Vancouver Canucks might have one of the best players in all of College Hockey, and it appears that he might be getting credit for it. Goaltender Thatcher Demko has been included in the initial list of nominations for the Hobey Baker Award for the most outstanding player, on and off the ice, in the NCAA.

Given Demko’s season to date, it’s of no shock that he’s one of three players representing Boston College. In 20 appearances this year, he’s put up a 14-4-2 record and a 0.936 save percentage, good for seventh in the country. More importantly, the 20-year-old is a minimum of a year younger than everyone ahead of him and ranks highest among prospects attached to NHL teams.

Demko is also second in the country with six shutouts, though he isn’t completely brick walling opponents with the frequency that he did to start the year. All of his shutouts came in the first nine games, where he had a total 0.973 SV%. Since then, he’s given up a minimum of one goal in every game and has a less than stellar 0.900 SV%.

Given Demko’s history, however, there’s no reason to believe that the San Diego native won’t rebound.

It should be noted that this is just the first step in the Hobey Baker voting process. There are 66 nominees at this time, and that list has to be whittled down to a group of ten. Thankfully, there’s a way you can help Demko out; the NCAA will be using fan voting as one of the deciding factors when creating a more cropped list. 

Demko is currently in 10th place with 330 votes (4.4%), while undrafted forward Drake Caggiula leads voting with 637 votes. You can vote once a day on the Hobey Baker Award’s Facebook page.

If Demko were to win the award, he would be the third goalie to win the trophy in its history, and just the second in the past 25 years. The only other? The man Demko expected to usurp for Vancouver’s goaltending throne, veteran Ryan Miller. Miller won the award in 2001 after putting up an absurd 0.950 in 40 games with Michigan State, in a year where he walked away with just about every award you could win in the CCHA Conference.

Demko’s next game is tomorrow, against the University of Massachusetts.