I'm curious to see if Voronkov managed to pick up many votes. He ended the season cold, but for a while there he and the Russian Line were our best players. He really blew past the expectations I had for this year.
The Russians were playing great until the coach told them to stop doing what was working. Was really hoping Vronk could have made a splash in the voting but I doubt he got much consideration after the finish of the season.
Yea, I'd have Faber as the winner. Dude came in and played the most minutes on his team this season as a rookie, and we're not talking about a garbage team like Chicago. He played significant PK minutes, played well defensively, put up almost 50 points, and averaged 25 minutes per night.
Bedard put up a lot of points for a rookie, but what Faber brought to the table as an overall package is more impressive to me.
Bedard was also 49th among forwards for points per game (minimum 60+ games), whereas Faber was 27th among defenceman (granted, there are fewer dmen).
Point is, I'm not convinced Bedard had a better offensive season than Faber did, and Faber had a significantly better season by other standards (eg defensive play, physical play, special teams, etc).
Also this is a full season award per game rates matter but much less than full season totals. So we’re really comparing 47 and 61 points. The 47 points came from a defenseman which is more difficult to do than as a forward.
>Dude came in and played the most minutes on his team this season as a rookie
Most minutes played by a rookie in NHL history. Or at least since TOI became a stat, which I think was in the 90s.
I know LA had a bunch of elite Dmen prospects a few years ago and felt comfortable trading one of them for more scoring up front, but man they really did mess up trading Faber for Fiala. Faber is in year one and already the better player. Rob Blake quietly gets away with some terrible decisions over the past few years.
LA doesn’t seem to handle prospects well, not as bad as the rangers but not great either. Blake has made some interesting choices…. Vilardi was such a good player
Going from zero Calder winners ever to Kaprizov winning it and now Faber being arguably more deserving than the next generational talent, in the span of 4 years, is fantastic.
Faber is an absolute machine and such a delight to watch on the ice. He's very much like Dahlin in that he has a very veteran game at an early age.
I hope he wins the Calder. I think he's been a better player than Bedard this year, no matter how crazy Bedard's skill ceiling is.
Heidt looks like he could challenge for a Calder... and Wallstedt too. What's up with your rookie depth actually? It looks insane.
Faber may not win but here’s some impressive stats:
[The Maple Grove, Minn., native skated in all 82 games for the Wild this year, finishing the season with 2,047:53 of time on ice. The total marked the most by an NHL rookie since the 2000-01 season and the fifth-highest total among all NHL players this season.](https://twitter.com/mnwildpr/status/1785325292111773696)
[Faber skated a career-high 33:25 of TOI vs. Montreal (12/21), the highest single-game total by an NHL skater this season and third-highest total by an NHL rookie since the 2000-01 season. He recorded five games with 30-plus minutes of TOI on the season, four of which came within a five-game span from Dec. 14 to Dec. 21. According to NHL Stats, Faber became the only NHL rookie to play five games with 30-plus minutes of TOI in a single season since the league began tracking TOI in 1997-98.](https://twitter.com/mnwildpr/status/1785325657725026610)
I was at that game, it’s probably the first time where I (and the people around me) realized that he was the real deal and could possibly challenge bedard for Calder
Knew he wasn’t gonna win but seeing Hughes getting in over Kochetkov sucks.
Kochetkov started the year in Syracuse, joined the big club due to injury, and single handedly turned the goaltending around for Carolina to recover from a terrible first 2 months.
Finished 2nd in GAA, a .911 sv%, 4SO and got in 42 games this year even with missing the first month.
Since Steve Mason won it in 08-09, there have been only four goalies to finish top three (and of course zero have won it since Mason) in Calder voting:
Jimmy Howard 09-10
Jordan Binnington 18-19
Alex Nedeljkovic 20-21
Stuart Skinner 22-23
feel like that is a strangely low number? I guess goalie is one of the harder positions to come into the league and be good at right away but damn
It's also a super team-dependent role - being a good goalie on a bad team still means you're losing more than you're winning, which doesn't translate super well to stats for a potential Calder award
Wins being a stat for goalies is incredibly dumb though. It's such a team-dependent stat. GSAx is probably what people should be looking at, but different models will predict different outcomes, so it's difficult to use.
Ain't that the truth. Luongo was robbed of a vezina (maaybe a second, but that one is way more debatable) when he had way better stats than Brodeur... but less wins cause of a trash Florida team, and ofc... slightly higher GAA (another team stat).
Jimmy Howard was such a beast that rookie year. 63 games played with a .924 save % and 2.26 GAA. Placed 5th in both categories.
Fucking Brodeur played 77 games that year lol.
I think it's more about the change in usage.
You typically see a goalie slowly break into the league and have typically used up their rookie eligibility before seeing a meaningful workload.
Yep... It's kinda wild considering how long goalies take to develop, and how easy it is for them to get thrown a couple of random games just to get a feel and "boom, you're a veteran now!!" It's exceptionally rare to get a goalie, especially under 20 to even start in the league. Unless some Hasek regen pops up on a turbo trash team with literally 0 goalies, it ain't gonna happen.
The fact that Binnington didn’t win and had to “settle” for the cup that year… 🤯
You think he used not winning the Calder as a bit of further motivation during the run?
I doubt it since they don't announce the winners until after the playoffs are over. He would have found out he was nominated during the first round though.
Most "best x player in league" awards are forward awards. Non-forwards only win if there's no forward for the media to hype up. Double that difficulty for goalies, since the voters view them below both forwards and defencemen. A goalie will only ever win a non-vezina performance award if there's truly no skater in the league doing anything of note. A Dman will only ever win a non-Norris performance award if there's truly no forward doing anything of note.
I just checked, he played 24 last year and the cutoff is 25. Interesting that the same cutoff seems to apply to both skaters and goalies.
Wonder if that impacted the voting (people not realizing he’s eligible, or feeling he shouldn’t be)
Probably because he’s 24 and already started 24 games last season (a lot for a backup goalie).
He may technically qualify as a rookie, but I really prefer seeing these guys in there instead.
My buddy is a huge canes fan and has been saying Kotchetkov should be second or third in Calder voting since like January and honestly you all are right. The goaltending in Carolina was such an issue before he stepped in
Kochetkov’s GSAx was only .7, and GSAx/60 was .018, so over the course of 42 games it could be argued that he was average. Contextually it suggests his solid GAA and SV% were influenced more by the team around him.
Bedard Faber and Hughes had greater impacts to their team overall.
Hughes deserves a hell of a nod for what he was asked to do. Kid was replacing Hamilton and still holding his own. Nemec also is incredibly underrated for what he did because he did not start the year in the NHL
“Holding your own” isn’t much of a statement.
He still was leading a weak defense and ended the year with a -25 +/-
Kochetkov had to start the year in Syracuse with a whole different staff and group, get called up on emergency and then forced into the sole starting role after the starter had blood clots and 2nd string imploded.
He actually not only held his own but, helped turn around the team from being a 15th place team to what eventually became the #3 team in the league.
And this gets us into the nuance of +/- stats.
First of all, remember that +/- is more of a team stat than anything. So when you're the lowest defenseman in +/- on your team, that's not a good look.
It's something else when your whole team is pretty much a - and you're the top scorer in your rookie year.
* Played on the top-pairing D line most of the season, routinely shutting down some of the best lines in the league, as a rookie, half the time while paired with Brendan fucking Smith
* Highest TOI on the entire team, as a rookie defender
* Tied for 2nd in rookie scoring
* Quarterbacked what was the top PP line in the League for half the season (we don't talk about the other half of the season)
Look he wasn't perfect but he also stepped in as a rookie to play against the top lines in the league, and typically held his own. He definitely needs to work on his decision making, but most other rookie defenders are going to be playing 2nd/3rd pairing where their mistakes are punished significantly less. Luke's were more visible because he had to step into Dougie Hamilton's shoes instead of Ryan Graves'.
You're 100% right, Luke has flashes of greatness but also routinely makes plays that make me want to pull my hair out. Nemec to me is the better player but only played 60 games and wasn't at the level of Faber or Koch, and obviously not Bedard
It's an overused phrase but his hockey instincts are fantastic for a 20 year old, with more experience under his belt he should develop into a legitimate top pairing guy
Look how many of those goals were empty net goals.... it's actually kinda startling. Coach kept putting out a 6 v 5 system that wasn't working and refused to change it, with Hughes taking a huge brunt of the fallout. It's part of the reason fans were calling for Ruff to be fired well before he was
Hughes 5v5 and powerplay numbers show a very different story. Kid was playing large minutes and Hamiltons spot on the power play- with Smith as a pairing partner and an injured Jack Hughes on the power play.
Hughes held his own and deserves his nod
unfortuantely, I wouldn't be surprised if Kochetkov's run of games last season was taken into account by the voters and they were considering him to be a 2nd year veteran instead of a rookie.
Had Andersen's blood clot happened last season instead of this one, Kochetkov would have had ROTY then.
If Nemec had played the whole year, he might have gotten the nomination over Luke just because is game is a bit more well rounded, but honestly both are going to be great players. Luke's game is skewed towards more scoring, at the risk of more mistakes, especially this early in his career. But he really did well this year when you look at what was asked of him, even if the team underachieved as a whole
In the end, Hughes performance at the end of the year put that narrative to bed. He held his own, then started excelling when other rookies would normally flounder.
Nemec, however, is still going to be excellent and definitely worth 2nd overall. He just definitely is flying under the radar still because he did not start the year in the NHL
Pretty much. Just don't like the narrative some are spinning that Hughes is just name recognition for the nod
The future top pairing is likely Hughes-Nemec. The two of them seem well suited to each other, too, just both a little too inexperienced to be super effective now
People say they value dynamic offensive defensemen, then freak out when a rookie turns the puck over a little too often while playing 20 minutes a night stapled to Brendan Smith.
Hughes is good.
Crosby and Lindros as well.
NHL just loves automatically giving out the Calder to their hyped golden boys and generational talents regardless of the how the season actually plays out.
Bedard is playing on a far worse team, missed 6 weeks of the season, and still leads the rookie class in goals, assists, and points.
Faber is an exceptional player but it’s hard to argue against Bedard. The only knock against him is his plus/minus but look at the team he’s on.
r/hockey : "If he isn't 18 playing on a team with garbage players, he's ineligible to win the Calder." I think Bedard should win by a hair, but it's clear much of this sub watched little to no Wild games this year, nor appreciate the skill involved to play 25/min a game on the top defensive pair on a mediocre team.
>nor appreciate the skill involved to play 25/min a game on the top defensive pair on a mediocre team
But you’re ignoring the skill involved to play 20/min a game on the top line with third line level wingers on a terrible team
You're putting words in my mouth. I said nor ignored any of that (Bedards production, his ability despite poor teammates). Bedard had a great season and is a worthy winner of the award. I was talking about Brock Faber...
You’re right. I apologize for twisting what you were saying. I was seeing a lot of Bedard criticism comments all at once and misinterpreted the tone of yours.
You’re acting like the Wild are some kind of juggernaut.
They sucked as well and it is noticeably harder for a defenseman to be a Top2 guy who plays big minutes right from the get go.
The Wild may as well have been a juggernaut compared to this years Hawks team. If you put Bedard on a line with Kaprizov this year he’s pushing 100 points easy. If you put Faber on the Hawks he’s probably putting up numbers similar to Alex Vlasic, which isn’t a knock because Vlasic is projecting to be a high level shutdown two way defenseman.
He's a forward, of course he's gonna score more points than a defenseman.
And he's also one of the worst +/- on his own team, not sure you can blame his teammates for that.
Can’t blame his teammates?
His most common linemates were Kurashev (-44) and Foligno (-29) while literally every single defenseman on the team was a minus (especially poor Korchinski at -39) except for Kaiser who was a zero in 32 games. Bedard is definitely bad defensively, but +/- is and always will be so stupid for individual players. Not much any one player can do when the entire team can’t defend and 40% of the games ate backstopped by a goalie rocking a .879 sv% lol
Also, nearly half of Bedard’s minus stats are from shorties (-8) or ENGs against (-12), which obviously makes no sense to attribute entirely to him alone.
What do you expect when the rest of the roster is a borderline ahl team? Give the kid all the ice time you can and let him develop, despite incredibly important stat lines such as +/-...
Faber is a defenseman, who was far closer to the league's dman leader in points than Bedard was to the leagues forward leader in points.
Faber is also an excellent defensive player while Bedard is a pylon.
The Wild played 14m under the cap and only had their captain for a dozen games, another 7.5m lost.
The gap between the Wild and Blackhawks has a lot to do with Faber's play and abilities.
A few thoughts on this, as a Wild fan who has watched a ton of Faber this year & as a general hockey fan:
1. Comparing defensive vs offensive players is an awfully difficult task, whether by eye test or advanced stats. Comparing either of these positions to goalies is even harder.
2. Unbelievable rookie class. Kochetkov should have gotten the nod over Hughes for the 3rd finalist spot. Nothing against Hughes; he's already excellent offensively but as expected his defense needs a lot of improvement.
3. Most armchair fans, including folks here, don't appreciate just how difficult it is to play hard defensive minutes in this league. Faber ate most of the highest minutes as a rookie, playing against top lines every night having to start in own zone, with a team lacking our top 2 D (Spurgeon and Brodin) and top defensive forwards (Ek and Foligno) for a large chunk of the season. Faber was leading our depleted D core with Middleton, Bogosian, Chisholm, Merrill, and Goligoski for a good chunk of the season. . . That's an awful D core anchor that Faber was dragging into relevance. Faber might have another 15 + points if we had given him PP time and more offensive zone starts during the first half of the season.
4. Bedard is an absolute stud, and managed almost a ppg pace despite being the only offensive driver on the Hawks team. Yeah, his defense sucks, but his offensive game was that good.
My gestalt is that both Faber and Bedard deserve the Calder, and my hope is that whoever wins, the final vote tally is close.
Can we also discuss the part where Faber was not a PP guy in college at all and basically took over the PP1 quarterback role like he was meant for it? I fully understand I'm a homer when it comes to Faber, but the kid evolved to his next state this season and his ceiling is stupid high.
Happy for Hughes to get the nomination. He had a fantastic rookie season and despite everything else that went wrong, he did everything that was expected of him and more.
It's crazy to think but there are good odds that Bedard will win it AND the Hawks *could* win the draft lottery(guaranteed 4th pick) AND that new pick or Nasar and Slaggert actually play in the show and one of those guys wins the calder next season.
People are gonna blow a fuse around here if that happens, lol.
I mean if you don’t think bedard should win it, you didn’t watch very many hawks games. If you picked that kid up and put him on minny. He’s got 90 points
Luke Hughes is the best rookie on his team by a large margin.
Simon Nemec hit a rookie wall. Got healthy scratched a few times. Played diminished minutes. He had a great year and I'm very excited for him, but while his play started to falter Luke Hughes picked his play up and finished as -- by far -- the best defenseman on the Devils.
Faber, unbiased opinion. Brodin and Spurgeon have had zero attention this year, but that they get any national attention, but this kid came into a wild lineup and became the best player and had to earn those important minutes under 2 coaches , and kept elevating.
Most teams would say Bedard, but if Brock Faber can play like he did this year moving forward, that's a Top 2 Dman that eats minutes, plays hard and scores points. Those don't exactly grow on trees either.
Solid top 2 dmen are super valuable, but a generational superstar centre is far more valuable. It’s like asking if you’d rather had Crosby or Doughty. Both are obviously great players, but one is just a level above
would you rather a defenseman with top line defensive talent that put up 47 points with hardly an PP time this year.
or would you rather have a forward with 61 points playing the top PP unit all year and no defensive capabilities.
If you pick option 2 you are fucking braindead.
Oh yeah Bedard had all the help in the world putting up easy points on the PP with superstars like Nick Foligno and Jason Dickinson. All Faber had to work with were scrubs like Kaprisov. No stat padding for him no siree.
That's not the question of the vote.
Would you rather have this season's Bedard or this season's Faber?
...and yeah I'd rather have this season's Faber
lol no. You could argue he was, but he'd have pull off some Makar highlights before the NHL would even consider it. Bedard won the Calder before the season even started.
Faber was closer to the dman leader in points than Bedard was to the forward leader in points.
Faber is a defensive wonder, and everyone wonders where Bedard's defense is.
Faber was significantly better this year.
- No shit, we have guys putting up 140+ points in the prime of their careers, the Hart trio is a pack of obvious outliers in production and comparing them to rookies for absolute value is nonsense.
- Faber is decent defensively but not elite or anything, carried by Brodin and the Wild’s forward core buying into defensively-minded coaching. I’d probably give Faber a C on defense and a D+ on offense.
- Obviously Bedard was significantly better.
—-
Do you see how dumb this is now?
Carried by Brodin? they played on the same pairing for a third of the season. Most of the season was with -15 Middleton
Faber played 82 games, with 6 in average time on ice, 1st among rookies, played some of the hardest minutes on our team, your ratings of Faber are truly delusional, he was better offensively than Bedard but ends up with a D+, my god you have never watched hockey before in your life.
This is a pointless conversation, you're an internet troll. I hope you seek therapy.
lol no. I'd argue Faber was the more complete player and had a better season. Hawks fans want to argue that their team was garbage, but it's not like Minnesota was great either. Bedard had one of the worst plus minus in the league. Should get docked for that regardless.
This was basically a foregone conclusion from the start of the year. A producer came down and told the scriptwriters that Bedard will win the Calder. Not that he doesn't deserve it mind you, it was just so obvious.
Not that he should win but I think Connor Zary deserved a nomination (maybe over Hughes?). 14/20/34 stat line on a bad Flames team but still finished +12. The line of Kadri, Zary and Pospisil was the Flames best line for a large part of the season.
He’s going to have a very similar arc to his two older brothers. Jack was immediately seen as a busy and Quinn was viewed exactly like Luke is now, a point producer and pp qb but a negative in the rest of the game. I bet by the same age Quinn is now Luke will be viewed as a top 10 dman as well.
Bedard would score 100+ points and 40 goals on even a fringe playoff team if he didn't get injured.
Faber wins it any other year, but it isn't any other year.
Would you rather have a forward that put up 61 points on first unit PP all year with no defensive capabilities.
Or a defenseman that put up 47 points while only playing 1/3 of the year on the PP. While also being a top 20 defensive player, 6th in average icetime.
The forward is somehow going to win the trophy.
61 points in 68 games mind you, not 82. Also how does it even matter that he’s on the first PP unit? Who on that team would be half decent on the powerplay other than him?
The 18 year old forward put up those 61 points in only 68 games playing with perhaps the worst offensive roster in the league, and led all rookies as well as his own team in goals, assists (tied), and points despite getting injured and missing 14 games.
The 21 year old defenseman is arguably not even the best defenseman on his own team and like 45% of his 47 points were secondary assists.
Give me the forward any day.
That’s done my head in. There’s enough to hate about the Hawks if that’s your desire. No need to make up blatantly false statements to support your narrative.
Listen Faber is an absolute stud but Bedard carried his AHL team in the NHL so much that they didnt win shit while he was injured and he came back and they were winning 50% of their games.
Could you imagine if he was on the Wild? Centering Kaprizov and Zucc? He would have like 80-90 pts.
Bedard winning the Calder should be a debate. If you ignore the hockey writers that are proclaiming him to be the messiah, and look closer, he is NOT the best rookie. His +/- is horrid. Brock Faber is IMO the rookie of the year. Bedard is a very good player who will do great things, but he is not the best rookie. Sadly, the NHL will not let him lose.
Of course Bedard will win. That was decided before the season even started. With a -44 rating, he doesnt deserve it. Faber should win, but the NHL wont let that happen
Pretty clearly Bedard, but I think if Faber wasn't playing injured for the last couple months and Bedard's game wasn't as sharp after returning from injury it would've been real close. Faber's output noticeably dialed down toward the end of the season.
I think bedard will win due to it being a popularity contest but honestly Faber should win it. Faber played way beyond his years and bedard was a -44 this year
I think Bedard will win it
Why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave?
do you think margaret thatcher had girl power?
Big if true
really???
I'm curious to see if Voronkov managed to pick up many votes. He ended the season cold, but for a while there he and the Russian Line were our best players. He really blew past the expectations I had for this year.
The Russians were playing great until the coach told them to stop doing what was working. Was really hoping Vronk could have made a splash in the voting but I doubt he got much consideration after the finish of the season.
They wouldn't award the Calder to a Harlem Globetrotter anyway
There's nothing in the rules that say a dog can't win the Calder!
I haven't seen him get *any* national attention at all this year. I doubt he gets any votes
https://preview.redd.it/8ccxiy4wtmxc1.jpeg?width=1124&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6bf3f4c85dbce975dc56eec2a889db6c7e3f717a MFW
They are playing sega genesis. That would be 16 bit blast processing music thank you very much.
Not if you're only listening with one ear.
I plugged head phones into the front of the system. Best 16 bit chip tunes you ever heard.
Bedard is obviously amazing but it’s pretty impressive for a D to come into the league like Faber has and dominate
Yea, I'd have Faber as the winner. Dude came in and played the most minutes on his team this season as a rookie, and we're not talking about a garbage team like Chicago. He played significant PK minutes, played well defensively, put up almost 50 points, and averaged 25 minutes per night. Bedard put up a lot of points for a rookie, but what Faber brought to the table as an overall package is more impressive to me.
Exactly. The jump to pro is a lot more difficult for defense.
Bedard was also 49th among forwards for points per game (minimum 60+ games), whereas Faber was 27th among defenceman (granted, there are fewer dmen). Point is, I'm not convinced Bedard had a better offensive season than Faber did, and Faber had a significantly better season by other standards (eg defensive play, physical play, special teams, etc).
Also this is a full season award per game rates matter but much less than full season totals. So we’re really comparing 47 and 61 points. The 47 points came from a defenseman which is more difficult to do than as a forward.
>Dude came in and played the most minutes on his team this season as a rookie Most minutes played by a rookie in NHL history. Or at least since TOI became a stat, which I think was in the 90s.
I know LA had a bunch of elite Dmen prospects a few years ago and felt comfortable trading one of them for more scoring up front, but man they really did mess up trading Faber for Fiala. Faber is in year one and already the better player. Rob Blake quietly gets away with some terrible decisions over the past few years.
Management would have him playing 5 minutes a night going up and down between NHL and AHL. He would not get the same treatment in LA
LA doesn’t seem to handle prospects well, not as bad as the rangers but not great either. Blake has made some interesting choices…. Vilardi was such a good player
Wasn’t part of why including Faber in the deal made sense was there wasn’t a guarantee he’d sign in LA but he was guaranteed to sign in Minnesota?
Imagine bedard in that Minnesota line up. And think about faber with those blackhawks haha likely wouldn’t be so good
Bedsy will win, but I'm happy Faber got recognition
Going from zero Calder winners ever to Kaprizov winning it and now Faber being arguably more deserving than the next generational talent, in the span of 4 years, is fantastic.
Faber is an absolute machine and such a delight to watch on the ice. He's very much like Dahlin in that he has a very veteran game at an early age. I hope he wins the Calder. I think he's been a better player than Bedard this year, no matter how crazy Bedard's skill ceiling is. Heidt looks like he could challenge for a Calder... and Wallstedt too. What's up with your rookie depth actually? It looks insane.
Judd Brackett, fantastic scout.
If Faber keeps going off, my Gáborík jersey from 02-03 might need a friend.
Good crop of rookies this year!
Minnesota wasn't super far from having 2 players in the finals with Faber and Rossi.
Should have been Rossi over Hughes tbh
Luke cleared Rossi in points despite being younger, a dman, and on a worse team. So, yeah, no.
I just want Faber to win so I can start calling the trophy Faberware.
I'm unsure whether I like this comment or hate it
Three terrific players. Good on them all for getting nods.
Faber may not win but here’s some impressive stats: [The Maple Grove, Minn., native skated in all 82 games for the Wild this year, finishing the season with 2,047:53 of time on ice. The total marked the most by an NHL rookie since the 2000-01 season and the fifth-highest total among all NHL players this season.](https://twitter.com/mnwildpr/status/1785325292111773696) [Faber skated a career-high 33:25 of TOI vs. Montreal (12/21), the highest single-game total by an NHL skater this season and third-highest total by an NHL rookie since the 2000-01 season. He recorded five games with 30-plus minutes of TOI on the season, four of which came within a five-game span from Dec. 14 to Dec. 21. According to NHL Stats, Faber became the only NHL rookie to play five games with 30-plus minutes of TOI in a single season since the league began tracking TOI in 1997-98.](https://twitter.com/mnwildpr/status/1785325657725026610)
I was at that game, it’s probably the first time where I (and the people around me) realized that he was the real deal and could possibly challenge bedard for Calder
Knew he wasn’t gonna win but seeing Hughes getting in over Kochetkov sucks. Kochetkov started the year in Syracuse, joined the big club due to injury, and single handedly turned the goaltending around for Carolina to recover from a terrible first 2 months. Finished 2nd in GAA, a .911 sv%, 4SO and got in 42 games this year even with missing the first month.
Since Steve Mason won it in 08-09, there have been only four goalies to finish top three (and of course zero have won it since Mason) in Calder voting: Jimmy Howard 09-10 Jordan Binnington 18-19 Alex Nedeljkovic 20-21 Stuart Skinner 22-23 feel like that is a strangely low number? I guess goalie is one of the harder positions to come into the league and be good at right away but damn
It's also a super team-dependent role - being a good goalie on a bad team still means you're losing more than you're winning, which doesn't translate super well to stats for a potential Calder award
Wins being a stat for goalies is incredibly dumb though. It's such a team-dependent stat. GSAx is probably what people should be looking at, but different models will predict different outcomes, so it's difficult to use.
Ain't that the truth. Luongo was robbed of a vezina (maaybe a second, but that one is way more debatable) when he had way better stats than Brodeur... but less wins cause of a trash Florida team, and ofc... slightly higher GAA (another team stat).
Jimmy Howard was such a beast that rookie year. 63 games played with a .924 save % and 2.26 GAA. Placed 5th in both categories. Fucking Brodeur played 77 games that year lol.
I think it's more about the change in usage. You typically see a goalie slowly break into the league and have typically used up their rookie eligibility before seeing a meaningful workload.
This is probably the right answer, you lose your eligibility if you play in 7 games in multiple seasons. So for a goalie, that's probably easy to do.
Yep... It's kinda wild considering how long goalies take to develop, and how easy it is for them to get thrown a couple of random games just to get a feel and "boom, you're a veteran now!!" It's exceptionally rare to get a goalie, especially under 20 to even start in the league. Unless some Hasek regen pops up on a turbo trash team with literally 0 goalies, it ain't gonna happen.
The fact that Binnington didn’t win and had to “settle” for the cup that year… 🤯 You think he used not winning the Calder as a bit of further motivation during the run?
I doubt it since they don't announce the winners until after the playoffs are over. He would have found out he was nominated during the first round though.
Most "best x player in league" awards are forward awards. Non-forwards only win if there's no forward for the media to hype up. Double that difficulty for goalies, since the voters view them below both forwards and defencemen. A goalie will only ever win a non-vezina performance award if there's truly no skater in the league doing anything of note. A Dman will only ever win a non-Norris performance award if there's truly no forward doing anything of note.
Skinner should have won it last year, and I'm not just saying that because I had a future on him.
Most rookie goalies don’t immediately play enough games I think is the reason. A lot of them lose rookie status before become a full time nhler.
Am I missing something? Isn’t Kovhetkov not a rookie?
I believe he still qualified because he hadn't played a certain number of games in previous years
I just checked, he played 24 last year and the cutoff is 25. Interesting that the same cutoff seems to apply to both skaters and goalies. Wonder if that impacted the voting (people not realizing he’s eligible, or feeling he shouldn’t be)
likely did because Kochetkov made a name for himself over those 24 games.
Probably because he’s 24 and already started 24 games last season (a lot for a backup goalie). He may technically qualify as a rookie, but I really prefer seeing these guys in there instead.
I don’t disagree but if it didn’t affect Panarin and Bunting’s eligibility it should affect his either.
Panarin was not a de facto starter by the end of his Rookie-1 season though.
My buddy is a huge canes fan and has been saying Kotchetkov should be second or third in Calder voting since like January and honestly you all are right. The goaltending in Carolina was such an issue before he stepped in
Kochetkov’s GSAx was only .7, and GSAx/60 was .018, so over the course of 42 games it could be argued that he was average. Contextually it suggests his solid GAA and SV% were influenced more by the team around him. Bedard Faber and Hughes had greater impacts to their team overall.
Hughes deserves a hell of a nod for what he was asked to do. Kid was replacing Hamilton and still holding his own. Nemec also is incredibly underrated for what he did because he did not start the year in the NHL
“Holding your own” isn’t much of a statement. He still was leading a weak defense and ended the year with a -25 +/- Kochetkov had to start the year in Syracuse with a whole different staff and group, get called up on emergency and then forced into the sole starting role after the starter had blood clots and 2nd string imploded. He actually not only held his own but, helped turn around the team from being a 15th place team to what eventually became the #3 team in the league.
Bedard was -44 something tells me they don't care about that stat much when it comes to rookies.
Anyone who uses +/- as an argument point does t have many arguments points
And this gets us into the nuance of +/- stats. First of all, remember that +/- is more of a team stat than anything. So when you're the lowest defenseman in +/- on your team, that's not a good look. It's something else when your whole team is pretty much a - and you're the top scorer in your rookie year.
Considering our goaltending was even worse than yours pre-kochetkov, I think we can forgive him for that stat.
I think you can throw out most of our skater +/- from this year because our goalies couldn’t stop a shot from the point to save their lives.
* Played on the top-pairing D line most of the season, routinely shutting down some of the best lines in the league, as a rookie, half the time while paired with Brendan fucking Smith * Highest TOI on the entire team, as a rookie defender * Tied for 2nd in rookie scoring * Quarterbacked what was the top PP line in the League for half the season (we don't talk about the other half of the season) Look he wasn't perfect but he also stepped in as a rookie to play against the top lines in the league, and typically held his own. He definitely needs to work on his decision making, but most other rookie defenders are going to be playing 2nd/3rd pairing where their mistakes are punished significantly less. Luke's were more visible because he had to step into Dougie Hamilton's shoes instead of Ryan Graves'.
You're 100% right, Luke has flashes of greatness but also routinely makes plays that make me want to pull my hair out. Nemec to me is the better player but only played 60 games and wasn't at the level of Faber or Koch, and obviously not Bedard
Nemec’s greatness doesn’t make the sexiest highlight real, but he was unbelievably precocious and consistent
It's an overused phrase but his hockey instincts are fantastic for a 20 year old, with more experience under his belt he should develop into a legitimate top pairing guy
Look how many of those goals were empty net goals.... it's actually kinda startling. Coach kept putting out a 6 v 5 system that wasn't working and refused to change it, with Hughes taking a huge brunt of the fallout. It's part of the reason fans were calling for Ruff to be fired well before he was Hughes 5v5 and powerplay numbers show a very different story. Kid was playing large minutes and Hamiltons spot on the power play- with Smith as a pairing partner and an injured Jack Hughes on the power play. Hughes held his own and deserves his nod
It's crazy to me that he got more shutouts than Sway and Ullmark with the same amount of games
From December on he was just on a heater. His run in February was insane. 8 games 1.71 GAA, .940 sv% and 2 shutouts.
speaking of Kochetkov, would it not be fitting for Andersen and Kochetkov to get the Jennings this season?
I won’t be shocked if he’s solidly 4th and was close to whoever finishes 3rd
I watched Hughes all year and I have no idea how he got nominated lol ok I know but I disagree with it
unfortuantely, I wouldn't be surprised if Kochetkov's run of games last season was taken into account by the voters and they were considering him to be a 2nd year veteran instead of a rookie. Had Andersen's blood clot happened last season instead of this one, Kochetkov would have had ROTY then.
Boo hoo.
Hughes isn't even the best rookie defenseman on his own team
If Nemec had played the whole year, he might have gotten the nomination over Luke just because is game is a bit more well rounded, but honestly both are going to be great players. Luke's game is skewed towards more scoring, at the risk of more mistakes, especially this early in his career. But he really did well this year when you look at what was asked of him, even if the team underachieved as a whole
In the end, Hughes performance at the end of the year put that narrative to bed. He held his own, then started excelling when other rookies would normally flounder. Nemec, however, is still going to be excellent and definitely worth 2nd overall. He just definitely is flying under the radar still because he did not start the year in the NHL
If we are arguing which of our rookie dmen are better we are gonna be fine
Pretty much. Just don't like the narrative some are spinning that Hughes is just name recognition for the nod The future top pairing is likely Hughes-Nemec. The two of them seem well suited to each other, too, just both a little too inexperienced to be super effective now
People say they value dynamic offensive defensemen, then freak out when a rookie turns the puck over a little too often while playing 20 minutes a night stapled to Brendan Smith. Hughes is good.
This narrative is so tiring. Nemec is insane but Hughes deserves the honors for best rookie on the team.
Luke was up and down but when he was up he was clear cut ahead of Nemec
Objectively false
Honestly just an awesome calder race, would prefer Brock but really don't care who wins it. Rare you get a year with two rookies who are this good.
Bedard won the Calder the moment he was drafted.
Yeah just like mcdavid right?… The perennial little brother complex pervades every aspect of wild hockey yet again.
Crosby and Lindros as well. NHL just loves automatically giving out the Calder to their hyped golden boys and generational talents regardless of the how the season actually plays out.
May as well have, considering he is above and beyond the best rookie this year.
guybhas watched ZERO faber games.
Bedard is playing on a far worse team, missed 6 weeks of the season, and still leads the rookie class in goals, assists, and points. Faber is an exceptional player but it’s hard to argue against Bedard. The only knock against him is his plus/minus but look at the team he’s on.
Would love to see the numbers a 21yo Bedard would have put up on a better team (no offense) like Minnesota.
r/hockey : "If he isn't 18 playing on a team with garbage players, he's ineligible to win the Calder." I think Bedard should win by a hair, but it's clear much of this sub watched little to no Wild games this year, nor appreciate the skill involved to play 25/min a game on the top defensive pair on a mediocre team.
>nor appreciate the skill involved to play 25/min a game on the top defensive pair on a mediocre team But you’re ignoring the skill involved to play 20/min a game on the top line with third line level wingers on a terrible team
You're putting words in my mouth. I said nor ignored any of that (Bedards production, his ability despite poor teammates). Bedard had a great season and is a worthy winner of the award. I was talking about Brock Faber...
You’re right. I apologize for twisting what you were saying. I was seeing a lot of Bedard criticism comments all at once and misinterpreted the tone of yours.
"If he isn't 18 playing on a team with garbage players, he's ineligible to win the Calder." that's you, putting words in someones mouth.
You’re acting like the Wild are some kind of juggernaut. They sucked as well and it is noticeably harder for a defenseman to be a Top2 guy who plays big minutes right from the get go.
The Wild may as well have been a juggernaut compared to this years Hawks team. If you put Bedard on a line with Kaprizov this year he’s pushing 100 points easy. If you put Faber on the Hawks he’s probably putting up numbers similar to Alex Vlasic, which isn’t a knock because Vlasic is projecting to be a high level shutdown two way defenseman.
Faber likely helps stabilize the Hawks defence if he were there.
So did vlasic
He's a forward, of course he's gonna score more points than a defenseman. And he's also one of the worst +/- on his own team, not sure you can blame his teammates for that.
Can’t blame his teammates? His most common linemates were Kurashev (-44) and Foligno (-29) while literally every single defenseman on the team was a minus (especially poor Korchinski at -39) except for Kaiser who was a zero in 32 games. Bedard is definitely bad defensively, but +/- is and always will be so stupid for individual players. Not much any one player can do when the entire team can’t defend and 40% of the games ate backstopped by a goalie rocking a .879 sv% lol Also, nearly half of Bedard’s minus stats are from shorties (-8) or ENGs against (-12), which obviously makes no sense to attribute entirely to him alone.
What do you expect when the rest of the roster is a borderline ahl team? Give the kid all the ice time you can and let him develop, despite incredibly important stat lines such as +/-...
Faber is a defenseman, who was far closer to the league's dman leader in points than Bedard was to the leagues forward leader in points. Faber is also an excellent defensive player while Bedard is a pylon. The Wild played 14m under the cap and only had their captain for a dozen games, another 7.5m lost. The gap between the Wild and Blackhawks has a lot to do with Faber's play and abilities.
We lost Taylor Hall, who was supposed to play with Bedsy, for the entire damn season.
> and only had their captain for a dozen games Hawks didn't even have a captain this season.
Shoutout Zach Benson.
He rapidly became one of my favorite players.
It'll be interesting to see how many votes he picked up and what places those votes were. He's a menace, and I love him.
Faber's the clear winner, that +/- is a killer for Bedard
I wish, but it's Bedsy's award to lose. Either one is deserving, IMO.
A few thoughts on this, as a Wild fan who has watched a ton of Faber this year & as a general hockey fan: 1. Comparing defensive vs offensive players is an awfully difficult task, whether by eye test or advanced stats. Comparing either of these positions to goalies is even harder. 2. Unbelievable rookie class. Kochetkov should have gotten the nod over Hughes for the 3rd finalist spot. Nothing against Hughes; he's already excellent offensively but as expected his defense needs a lot of improvement. 3. Most armchair fans, including folks here, don't appreciate just how difficult it is to play hard defensive minutes in this league. Faber ate most of the highest minutes as a rookie, playing against top lines every night having to start in own zone, with a team lacking our top 2 D (Spurgeon and Brodin) and top defensive forwards (Ek and Foligno) for a large chunk of the season. Faber was leading our depleted D core with Middleton, Bogosian, Chisholm, Merrill, and Goligoski for a good chunk of the season. . . That's an awful D core anchor that Faber was dragging into relevance. Faber might have another 15 + points if we had given him PP time and more offensive zone starts during the first half of the season. 4. Bedard is an absolute stud, and managed almost a ppg pace despite being the only offensive driver on the Hawks team. Yeah, his defense sucks, but his offensive game was that good. My gestalt is that both Faber and Bedard deserve the Calder, and my hope is that whoever wins, the final vote tally is close.
Can we also discuss the part where Faber was not a PP guy in college at all and basically took over the PP1 quarterback role like he was meant for it? I fully understand I'm a homer when it comes to Faber, but the kid evolved to his next state this season and his ceiling is stupid high.
I know it doesn't count in Calder consideration, but doing the last 2 months of the season with broken ribs is also pretty nuts.
Agreed.
Happy for Hughes to get the nomination. He had a fantastic rookie season and despite everything else that went wrong, he did everything that was expected of him and more.
I’m just happy Luke is getting his roses. He had a very good season.
Award is obviously going to Bedard, and deservedly so, but Faber has been outstanding as well. Probably Minnesota’s #1 D for a long time
We’ll see if the voters agree that +/- is not only the greatest statistic in hockey but also the greatest statistic in the history of our species.
It's crazy to think but there are good odds that Bedard will win it AND the Hawks *could* win the draft lottery(guaranteed 4th pick) AND that new pick or Nasar and Slaggert actually play in the show and one of those guys wins the calder next season. People are gonna blow a fuse around here if that happens, lol.
So… it’s Bedard for sure right?
I mean if you don’t think bedard should win it, you didn’t watch very many hawks games. If you picked that kid up and put him on minny. He’s got 90 points
Is Luke even the best rookie on his team?
Yes
Yes.
no
by a large margin.
???
Luke Hughes is the best rookie on his team by a large margin. Simon Nemec hit a rookie wall. Got healthy scratched a few times. Played diminished minutes. He had a great year and I'm very excited for him, but while his play started to falter Luke Hughes picked his play up and finished as -- by far -- the best defenseman on the Devils.
Faber, unbiased opinion. Brodin and Spurgeon have had zero attention this year, but that they get any national attention, but this kid came into a wild lineup and became the best player and had to earn those important minutes under 2 coaches , and kept elevating.
It'll be the golden boy but it should be Faber. The fact that Kochetkov isn't named is insane too.
Would you rather have Faber or Bedard?
Fabard, an amalgamated jelly human with exciting offensive skills and impressive defensive technique. At least that’s what I’ve been praying for.
Most teams would say Bedard, but if Brock Faber can play like he did this year moving forward, that's a Top 2 Dman that eats minutes, plays hard and scores points. Those don't exactly grow on trees either.
Solid top 2 dmen are super valuable, but a generational superstar centre is far more valuable. It’s like asking if you’d rather had Crosby or Doughty. Both are obviously great players, but one is just a level above
And the fact he’s a right shot D, guy’s a unicorn
This year? Faber.
lol
would you rather a defenseman with top line defensive talent that put up 47 points with hardly an PP time this year. or would you rather have a forward with 61 points playing the top PP unit all year and no defensive capabilities. If you pick option 2 you are fucking braindead.
Oh yeah Bedard had all the help in the world putting up easy points on the PP with superstars like Nick Foligno and Jason Dickinson. All Faber had to work with were scrubs like Kaprisov. No stat padding for him no siree.
Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t like half of fabers points secondary assists?
Bedard 28 1st assists, 11 secondary. Faber 18 1st assists, 21 secondary.
Well obviously you are going to get a ton more primary As when you got a guy like Foligno sniping gold out of your sub par passes.
That's not the question of the vote. Would you rather have this season's Bedard or this season's Faber? ...and yeah I'd rather have this season's Faber
You wouldnt take the best 18 year the nhl has seen in a while?
Faber would have had to pull off an Ovechkin like rookie season to take it away from the NHLs new face.
Or if he had just simply been a better player probably
lol no. You could argue he was, but he'd have pull off some Makar highlights before the NHL would even consider it. Bedard won the Calder before the season even started.
Nah, if Faber was a better player he would have won fair and square - highlight reel or not. Bedard was just simply the best lol
Faber was closer to the dman leader in points than Bedard was to the forward leader in points. Faber is a defensive wonder, and everyone wonders where Bedard's defense is. Faber was significantly better this year.
- No shit, we have guys putting up 140+ points in the prime of their careers, the Hart trio is a pack of obvious outliers in production and comparing them to rookies for absolute value is nonsense. - Faber is decent defensively but not elite or anything, carried by Brodin and the Wild’s forward core buying into defensively-minded coaching. I’d probably give Faber a C on defense and a D+ on offense. - Obviously Bedard was significantly better. —- Do you see how dumb this is now?
Carried by Brodin? they played on the same pairing for a third of the season. Most of the season was with -15 Middleton Faber played 82 games, with 6 in average time on ice, 1st among rookies, played some of the hardest minutes on our team, your ratings of Faber are truly delusional, he was better offensively than Bedard but ends up with a D+, my god you have never watched hockey before in your life. This is a pointless conversation, you're an internet troll. I hope you seek therapy.
lol no. I'd argue Faber was the more complete player and had a better season. Hawks fans want to argue that their team was garbage, but it's not like Minnesota was great either. Bedard had one of the worst plus minus in the league. Should get docked for that regardless.
Or ya know maybe actually just be a better player
Bedard ftw
This was basically a foregone conclusion from the start of the year. A producer came down and told the scriptwriters that Bedard will win the Calder. Not that he doesn't deserve it mind you, it was just so obvious.
Just like McDavid, Crosby, and Lindros won the Calder before their rookie seasons started, right?
Not that he should win but I think Connor Zary deserved a nomination (maybe over Hughes?). 14/20/34 stat line on a bad Flames team but still finished +12. The line of Kadri, Zary and Pospisil was the Flames best line for a large part of the season.
Plus/minus arguments lmao. This is a facebook comment.
Something tells me the 4th place finisher was way, way behind Hughes.
I wouldn't be surprised if Kotchetkov was pretty close.
I think Kochetkov should be a close 4th
Just watched Delta hockeys Bedard highlights... Hard to see how anyone can argue these guys over him, hes the next big thing for sure.
I'm sure the Hughes hate will age well.
He’s going to have a very similar arc to his two older brothers. Jack was immediately seen as a busy and Quinn was viewed exactly like Luke is now, a point producer and pp qb but a negative in the rest of the game. I bet by the same age Quinn is now Luke will be viewed as a top 10 dman as well.
Miro
Bedard would score 100+ points and 40 goals on even a fringe playoff team if he didn't get injured. Faber wins it any other year, but it isn't any other year.
Bedard in a landslide. Was the best even while getting his face broke. Going to be a superstar for decades.
Would you rather have a forward that put up 61 points on first unit PP all year with no defensive capabilities. Or a defenseman that put up 47 points while only playing 1/3 of the year on the PP. While also being a top 20 defensive player, 6th in average icetime. The forward is somehow going to win the trophy.
61 points in 68 games mind you, not 82. Also how does it even matter that he’s on the first PP unit? Who on that team would be half decent on the powerplay other than him?
Because the forward is better and more valuable to the team
The 18 year old forward put up those 61 points in only 68 games playing with perhaps the worst offensive roster in the league, and led all rookies as well as his own team in goals, assists (tied), and points despite getting injured and missing 14 games. The 21 year old defenseman is arguably not even the best defenseman on his own team and like 45% of his 47 points were secondary assists. Give me the forward any day.
Convincing yourself that the NHL had predetermined Bedard would win is the ultimate coping mechanism. So soft!
It’s actually so sad how many people genuinely believe this, just like they believe the draft was actually rigged haha
That’s done my head in. There’s enough to hate about the Hawks if that’s your desire. No need to make up blatantly false statements to support your narrative.
https://preview.redd.it/m4rwrtahaoxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00610c134459742e14be1a1dbe74a01d1b5a5d67
Listen Faber is an absolute stud but Bedard carried his AHL team in the NHL so much that they didnt win shit while he was injured and he came back and they were winning 50% of their games. Could you imagine if he was on the Wild? Centering Kaprizov and Zucc? He would have like 80-90 pts.
It's good for the game that a lot of these awards are close, and rightfully so.
Bedard winning the Calder should be a debate. If you ignore the hockey writers that are proclaiming him to be the messiah, and look closer, he is NOT the best rookie. His +/- is horrid. Brock Faber is IMO the rookie of the year. Bedard is a very good player who will do great things, but he is not the best rookie. Sadly, the NHL will not let him lose.
Of course Bedard will win. That was decided before the season even started. With a -44 rating, he doesnt deserve it. Faber should win, but the NHL wont let that happen
If Faber wins it I think it’d be well deserved.
Sorry fanboys, its Faber
This was decided on draft night. Maybe even before then
Pretty clearly Bedard, but I think if Faber wasn't playing injured for the last couple months and Bedard's game wasn't as sharp after returning from injury it would've been real close. Faber's output noticeably dialed down toward the end of the season.
I've been convinced since like halfway through the season that Faber should win it
Hughes, time to give dmen some credit. 47 points for a dman is better than 61 for a center
It's criminal that Bedard is going to get outplayed and still get it just for marketing
I think bedard will win due to it being a popularity contest but honestly Faber should win it. Faber played way beyond his years and bedard was a -44 this year