With McDavid's team missing the playoffs, it basically became a race between great seasons on teams that sucked the year before. Kind of like how the Adams goes to the coach that resided over the biggest turnaround from the year prior.
Devils had 70 points in 2017. Colorado had 48 (!) Kings had 86.
Even though we know better, the Kings still have a bit of cache around the league since they won Cups with these core guys, a core that includes the Jennings winner and a guy that just missed out on a 2nd Norris. Kopitar, in my opinion, was the better player than Hall/MacKinnon simply due to all the additional things he does on top of the 92 points. He trashed MacKinnon head-to-head and I'm going to go ahead and take the one less point Kopitar had than Hall when I take in to account that Kopitar is also the Selke winner.
The Kings weren't a great story compared to NJ and especially Colorado. I'm actually surprised he was a finalist and, looking at the votes, he just eked ahead of Giroux. In the end, great to see him snag another Selke. All we can hope for is a duplication of this past season and not the alternating good/bad we've had since 2014.