This season at The Athletic, we’re running a quarterly Calder Trophy watch checking in with the league’s top rookies.
For our midseason edition, reporters Scott Wheeler and Harman Dayal each submitted blind 10-player ballots (twice the length of their PHWA awards ballots so as to touch on a wider range of the league’s rookies) and went back and forth on the players they differed on. Here are the combined results at the halfway mark.
Stats: 39 GP, 15 G, 18 A, 33 PTS, 19:04 ATOI
Wheeler’s ballot: 1st
Dayal’s ballot: 1st
Will Bedard still be the front-runner by the time he returns from his broken jaw?
On Jan. 10, the Blackhawks announced their star center had undergone surgery and would miss six to eight weeks. If Bedard is out until March (which would be seven weeks from his surgery), he’ll miss 19 games total. And if he maintains his current scoring pace upon a March 1 return, he’ll finish with 24 goals and 53 points in 63 games. That would likely be enough to win the rookie goal and points race based on his competitors’ current pace.
Bedard’s production is extremely impressive considering he’s on a deserted island in Chicago. There’s arguably no player in the league asked to do as much for their team with as little help — Philipp Kurashev is his most regular linemate this season for crying out loud! The degree to which penalty killers cheated to Bedard’s side to limit his puck touches and deny shooting lanes on the power play earlier this season, knowing the Blackhawks’ other man advantage attackers aren’t dangerous threats, is staggering.
Bedard still has a decent chance of winning the Calder, but the door’s wide open if he starts slowly off his return or if Brock Faber goes on a tear in the meantime. — Dayal
Stats: 47 GP, 4 G, 24 A, 28 PTS, 24:44 ATOI
Wheeler’s ballot: 2nd
Dayal’s ballot: 2nd
I was this close to ranking Faber first and I think there’s still a very real chance he ends up there on my actual ballot when it’s all said and done. He’s playing first-pairing minutes (his average time on ice has actually risen from 23:20 to 24:44 since we last did this at the quarter mark) to excellent on-ice results. And maybe more importantly in terms of garnering the critical mass he’ll need from voters, his counting stats are now there, too. He had just eight points in 17 games (0.47 points per game) when he finished tied for second in the first version of this exercise back at the end of November. He has 20 points in the 31 games since (0.65 points per game). If Bedard gets back from injury and still leads the Blackhawks in scoring (which feels inevitable), voters are likely going to favor him. But if Faber has a 45-to-50-point season (which he’s now on pace for) while playing 25 minutes per game, he’ll likely have a very strong case as the more deserving winner. — Wheeler
GO DEEPER
As Brock Faber’s stellar play continues for Wild, the Calder Trophy door opens — ‘if not the Norris’
Stats: 45 GP, 8 G, 17 A, 25 PTS, 20:35 ATOI
Wheeler’s ballot: 3rd
Dayal’s ballot: 3rd
Hughes is already one of the most entertaining, dynamic defensemen in the league. He’s a dynamite puck carrier in all three zones, has excellent playmaking vision and is on pace for 14 goals and 45 points.
It’s been a treat to watch him make game-winning plays like the one against Vegas earlier this week — the way he reads and intercepts this neutral zone pass, keeps his head up the whole way to conceal his intention with the puck and then slides a pass across to tee up Tyler Toffoli’s overtime winner is impressive.
Hughes isn’t just making flashy offensive plays, he’s controlling play well in a top-four role. Sure, there have been defensive warts along the way, but the Devils are outplaying opponents to the tune of a 56.2 percent share of shot attempts and 54.7 percent share of scoring chances during Hughes’ five-on-five minutes. His workload is also becoming heavier because of
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .