Braden Holtby is the team’s regular season Honest Abe.

At the end of the Capitals’ first season using the Honest Abe award, Braden Holtby led the team with seven, which doesn’t come as a surprise considering his workload. Jason Chimera, who spent some of his time as a healthy scratch this season, came in second with five awards. Nicklas Backstrom and Brooks Orpik tied for third.

Meanwhile, Karl Alzner was the only regular player who didn’t get picked, even once. “I’ve never won one of those things in my entire career, not even junior or nothing. It’s kinda funny,” Alzner said after the regular season finale. At that point, only Andre Burakovsky hadn’t won it yet, but he did that in the Caps’ final victory of the playoffs.

Many teams have an equivalent to the Honest Abe, a team award given after a win, usually to the ‘hardest working’ player. The Caps used to have a ‘hard hat’ of the game.

However, the award is sometimes given out for reasons other than ‘hardest working,’ such as returning from an injury, or things only the players know about. John Carlson won one because it was his birthday (and he scored a goal). Surely, Alzner would get one for his iron-man games played streak, his awesome plus/minus, becoming a new father, or being an overall likable fella?

“My birthday was an exhibition, so I didn’t get a chance to get it. It doesn’t bother me. It’s not something that I pat myself on the back for.”

One note: We missed one of these during the season and no one we spoke with at the Caps remembers who got it. It was the Nov. 28, 2014 game in a 5-2 win against the Islanders. We gave it to Backstrom’s 12-year-old guest, Sam Becker. Here are the totals, from our database. Special thanks to Washington Post beat writer Alex Prewitt for announcing each winner on Twitter after the games.

Honest Abe Database