Texas Stars' Morin voted AHL's most valuable player

Texas Stars center Travis Morin on Friday was voted the winner of the Les Cunningham Award as the American Hockey League's most valuable player for the 2013-14 season.

The award is voted on by coaches, players and members of the media in each of the league's 30 cities.

Morin, a ninth-round pick (No. 263) of the Washington Capitals in the 2004 NHL Draft, is in his fifth season with the Stars, an affiliate of the Dallas Stars.

Since getting four points on opening night, Morin has been the AHL's leading scorer wire-to-wire in 2013-14 and has 32 goals and 55 assists for 87 points with a plus-16 rating in 65 games with Texas heading into the final weekend of the regular season.

Leading the offense for the regular-season champion Stars, Morin has nearly doubled his 44 points from a year ago while setting franchise records for assists and points in a season.

The CCM/AHL Player of the Month in October and January, Morin began the season on a 10-game scoring streak and has gone without a point in consecutive games on four occasions. He took part in the 2014 AHL All-Star Classic in February and was named a 2013-14 First Team AHL All-Star last week.

A seventh-year pro from Brooklyn Park, Minn., Morin appeared in four games with Dallas this season, picking up an assist for his first NHL point. In 349 AHL games with Texas and Hershey, Morin has 99 goals and 196 assists for 295 points, and he is the Stars' all-time leader in goals (99), assists (195) and points (294) in 344 games.

The AHL's most valuable player award honors the late Les Cunningham, a member of the AHL Hall of Fame who was a five-time league All-Star and three-time Calder Cup champion with the Cleveland Barons. Previous winners of the award include Carl Liscombe (1948, '49), Johnny Bower (1956, '57, '58), Fred Glover (1960, '62, '64), Mike Nykoluk (1967), Gilles Villemure (1969, '70), Doug Gibson (1975, '77), Pelle Lindbergh (1981), Ross Yates (1983), Paul Gardner (1985, '86), Tim Tookey (1987), Jody Gage (1988), John Anderson (1992), Don Biggs (1993), Derek Armstrong (2001), Jason LaBarbera (2004), Jason Spezza (2005), Darren Haydar (2007), Keith Aucoin (2010), Corey Locke (2011), Cory Conacher (2012) and Tyler Johnson (2013).