For our first Committee-voted Award of the season, why not start with the most controversial one right away? This one caused quite some criticism when the nominees were originally announced with one nominee in particular drawing people's ire, but don’t let that overshadow all the young players that found a great start to their careers. So here they are, your nominees for this season’s Ryan Jesster Award for best rookie.

Tim Allen Jr. @Lem

A very controversial nominee, Tim Allen Jr. was a back-up that only played 13 games throughout his rookie season and also is an Inactive. He won 11 out of those 13 games however in one of the toughest conferences in the league, putting up 0.921 Save-Percentage in the process and racking up 4 Shutouts, meaning that more than a third of the games he played in, he managed to shut out the opposition. Easy opposition or not, that’s quite the accomplishment not just for a rookie, but for any goalie.

Marcel Beck @By-Tor

Don’t let his -54 rating fool you, Marcel Beck was a real heavy lifter for the bottom-feeding Winnipeg Aurora in his first season already. Being the top-scoring rookie Defenseman with 30 points, he also led all rookies in assists, ice-time (both even strength and special teams), powerplay points and takeaways. He might have gotten more chances to shine than most of his classmates, but he made the most of it on both offense and defense.

Lev Lebedev @Lorec

And lastly we have the top-scoring rookie of the last season, Lev Lebedev out of Edmonton. He managed to put up 35 points, four more than second place, and he did so with the least powerplay time of the top rookie scorers. Lebedev also played some of the biggest PK-minutes of all rookie Defensemen, which goes to show how much trust his team put into him already.

And The Winner of the S63 Ryan Jesster Award for Best Rookie is…