Calder Hopes

The Oilers are entering the final stretch of the season and,
as usual, the team isn’t playing for anything other than pride. There is almost
literally nothing on the line every night, except perhaps an improbable individual
award for Connor McDavid.

The absolute last thing we ever expect to hear from McDavid
would be for him to acknowledge the Calder trophy as a goal this season. Maybe
he really doesn’t care about it at all. After all, the fans seem to have a more
vested interest in personal awards than the players ever admit. This is especially
true of the Calder trophy.

Edmonton’s losing history with the Calder trophy begins with
Wayne Gretzky being ruled ineligible and continues up to present day. It’s the
only major individual award that still eludes the Oilers. It’s the last Pokemon
that would complete our collection.

I thought the Oilers had a chance when they won the Hall
lottery. First overall picks, you have to think, have a great shot at winning
the award the following year. But it didn’t work out that way.

2010-2011: Hall mangles his ankle in a fight and loses too
much time to win the award. Jeff Skinner has a career year in his rookie season
and wins the award. Sigh. Maybe next time.

2011-2012: Nugent-Hopkins trips and falls into the boards.
He misses 20 games with a mangled shoulder and it takes every ounce of power
that Landeskog has to match Nuge’s points over a full season. They give the
award to the guy with the 20 extra games. Sigh. Maybe next time.

2012-2013: Yakupov wins the Rookie scoring race on the
strength of a Hat-Trick in the final game of the season! He leads his team in
goal scoring. They called the final part of the shortened 48 game season “Garbage
Time”. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Shutout three years in a row with consecutive first overall
picks, it was time to give up. Did it sting a little bit when the next two
first overall picks (MacKinnon and Ekblad) won the Calder trophies next?

Yeah.

Does the Nugent-Hopkins Calder loss still make me angry
because of course it’s stupid to applaud a guy for staying healthy as if
needing 20 more games to match the point production of a kid who blew out his
shoulder is something we should be impressed by?

Yeah. Obviously.

But as soon as Bill Daly announced that the Oilers won the
McDavid lottery you know a tiny little voice in the back of your head was
whispering “Calder”.

Who is going to get in the way of McDavid winning the
Calder? Jack Eichel?

Jack Eichel’s own General Manager apologized to the people
of Buffalo for losing the lottery and having to settle for Jack Eichel. Not
worried.

What could go wrong? I mean, it’s not like the Flyers
defense would be so useless and slow that the only way to actually stop Connor
McDavid would be by literally jumping on him and driving his shoulder into the boards
at full-speed, snapping his clavicle like a twig and forcing him out of the
lineup for two months (plus one extra month of team prescribed super healing
time).

So fast forward to today and that’s exactly what happened.
McDavid has played just 30 of 67 Oiler games. Even tied for the lead in rookie
scoring in 2011-2012, Nuge didn’t win because he missed 20 games. By extension
of the logic used by the voters, McDavid shouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in
hell at winning the Calder.

However, sometimes players come along who are indeed so
special that exceptions need to be made. McDavid is that player. I think the
NHL Awards voting community cannot hold it against the kid that he was injured.
I mean, some will for sure, but they shouldn’t.

Connor McDavid is scoring at a 1.13 points per game pace.
That’s 2nd in the entire NHL, behind only Patrick Kane. He’s
outpacing Artemi Panarin, who is scoring 0.92 points per game while riding
shotgun to the aforementioned Pat Kane. The next closest player in points per
game is the Gostisbehere in Philadelphia at .78 points per game.

In terms of 5v5 points per 60 minutes, Connor McDavid is
leading the NHL with 3.16 P/60 (min 200 minutes). Evgeny Kuznetsov is 2nd
at 2.75 P/60. There is nobody more dangerous 5v5 than McDavid in the entire NHL
and it isn’t even particularly close. For rookie reference, Panarin is 30th
in the NHL at 2.07 P/60.

While we’re dipping our toes in the fancystats pool, McDavid
is also tied for the lead on the Oilers in Corsi For percentage (52.5%). This
is a commendable feat for a 19 year old NHL rookie, even a generational one.

Back to the traditional, and truly impressive, numbers.
Since the All-Star break, when McDavid returned from injury, he has lead the
NHL in scoring with 22 points. If he keeps up that pace then he should finish
somewhere close to 54 points in 45 games.

Is that enough to win the Calder? He won’t catch Artemi
Panarin (he of the 250+ KHL games before qualifying to be a “Rookie” in the
NHL). He could conceivably be 2nd or 3rd in rookie
scoring by the end of the season.

To me, this award (and all others follow suit) should answer
this question: Who is the best rookie in the NHL?

The voters often twist themselves in to mental knots trying
to parse out meaning from the poorly worded definitions for the awards. “Is he
the most valuable player or the most valuable player TO HIS TEAM???” The Calder
is defined as the award given “to the player selected as the most proficient in
his first year of competition in the National Hockey League.”

There’s always been enough leeway with the award to not
automatically give it to the highest scoring rookie. That brings me back to the
question I ask. Who is the best rookie?

If voters are honestly asking themselves that question, then
I don’t know how McDavid doesn’t win it in a landslide. He’s the best rookie. It
isn’t even much of a contest. If he keeps up current scoring pace, assuming he doesn’t
get better between game 30 and 45, his scoring prowess will only be rivaled by
the man on pace to with the Art Ross trophy.

If he doesn’t win the award his career will be just as
fantastic as we all believe it’s going to be. He’s no less extraordinary. But
let’s be real here, if Connor doesn’t win the award it’s because a mistake has
been made.

There is still time to get your submissions in for the Give-N-Go contest. Deadline is March 12th.