The Calder Trophy is given every year to the player who is deemed “most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League”; that’s just an unnecessarily long way of saying the rookie of the year. To be eligible, a player must be under 26 years old by the middle of September of the year he’s playing and cannot have played 25 games in a previous season in the NHL. For the age reason, Anaheim goalie Viktor Fasth is not eligible this year.
There’s been some debate in the online community as to who should take the award. In reality, there’s a few ways you could go about this. To make it more exclusionary – and by extension, harder on myself – I’m going to give you a list of three players who I think should be nominated and my winner. Keep in mind, these are not the players that are nominated (those haven’t been released yet) or the players that I think will be nominated. These are the players I think should be nominated and who the winner should be. With the caveats out of the way, this is how I saw the rookies this year (in no particular order to start).
Nomination #1: C – Jonathan Huberdeau (FLA)
At quick glance, the -15 rating that Huberdeau finished with by the end of the season looks a little gruesome. It was tied for the fourth-worst rating on the Panthers, tied with George Parros. Anyone that reads my articles, though, knows I give these things more than a quick glance.
Florida was a bad team. There’s no way around that. They had by far the worst goal differential this year in the entire league, they tied for the second-worst goals for and had the worst goals against. This is not conducive to a good plus/minus rating for anyone. But there’s more.
It could be argued that goaltending was the reason the Panthers were so bad this year. Jacob Markstrom ended the year with a .912 even-strength save percentage, good for 40th among goalies with at least 10 starts. Scott Clemmensen had the worst even strength save percentage in the NHL among all goalies with at least 10 starts. Jose Theodore had the fourth-worst EVSV% in the NHL among all goalies with at least 10 starts as well. These three goalies combined for a league-worst .887 overall save percentage.
But that happens on bad teams right? Well, here’s a list of teams that had a worse shot differential this year than the Panthers’ -2.2 (shots for/game – shots against/game):
- Edmonton (-6)
- Toronto (-5.9)
- Buffalo (-5.6)
- Dallas (-4.8)
- Washington (-4.2)
- Columbus (-3.2)
- Tampa Bay (-2.7)
- Calgary (-2.5)
You’ll notice that two of those teams (Washington, Toronto) are playoff teams and Dallas and Columbus were in the playoff race in the last week of the season. The whole point of this is to point out that the minus rating could be less of a result from bad defensive play and more a result of bad goaltending.
Three regular forwards for the Florida Panthers ended up with a positive On-Ice Corsi rating for the year: Drew Shore, Peter Mueller and Huberdeau. Coincidentally, this was the trio that was on the ice together the most often of any Panthers’ forwards combinations all year. While the trio was very effective when they were on the ice together, they still all managed double-digit negative ratings. So it’s not like Huberdeau was a reckless rookie that hurt his team. Rather, this is a natural by-product of these three being in the Panthers’ Top-5 for most 5v5 minutes played/60 minutes with subpar goaltending.
Huberdeau finished the season tied for the league lead in rookie points (31) with Nail Yakupov and finished second in goals (14), again to Yakupov (17). He played the most minutes/game of all qualified rookies with 16:55 and tied for the lead on the Panthers in most penalties drawn/60 minutes.
All in all it was a very successful rookie campaign for the 19-year old, in the face of me not speaking highly of him in my Draft Guide. He was among the best on a team that wasn’t as bad as it seems at face value.
Nomination #2: RW – Nail Yakupov (EDM)
The night that Nail Yakupov scored the game-tying and pulled off the “Theoren Fleury” celebration, a legend was born.
Ok, maybe legend is a little strong. Also, maybe Yakupov was among the worst Edmonton forwards in terms of On-Ice Corsi even though his quality of competition was just middle-of-the-road. He shot an extraordinary 21% this year (17 goals on 81 shots) and that number will come down next year.
Maybe he shot such a high percentage that it skewed his team’s on-ice shooting percentage, so he finished with a regression-candidate 11.11%, just slightly behind proven scorers like Corey Perry (11.18%) and Alex Ovechskin (11.2%).
Maybe he was a -10 going into the last three games of the season (when he scored six goals, mind you) which skewed his final plus/minus a bit.
Maybe Yakupov only had 48 shots in 34 games going into April when he shot an unbelievable 33% to score 11 goals in 14 games, capping a season of wild inconsistency.
Maybe the 1029 PDO Yakupov finished with, tied with Rick Nash, is a clear sign that there’s going to be a regression next year from the efficiency that he showed this year.
Maybe that despite Yakupov scoring an impressive six power-play goals this year, the difference in the team’s On-Ice shooting% when Yakupov is on for the man-advantage (15%) is less between him and Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson (13.89%) than it is between him and Sam Gagner (16.28%). This would tell me that despite being on a team loaded with offensive talent, Yakupov performed more like a second-unit player than a top-unit player (two roles he flip-flopped between). In essence, he was the best of the second-tier of players on Edmonton than the likes of Jordan Eberle or Taylor Hall.
Maybe Yakupov was tied for second (23) among rookie forwards for giveaways, a trait that will have to be corrected soon is Yakupov doesn’t want to find himself playing third-line minutes for the majority of next season.
Maybe all those things are true. But at the end of the day, you can’t take away the rookie goal-scoring lead. Also, you can’t take away that when he got the puck in the neutral zone, it was “hang on to your hats” time. He was entertaining to watch almost on a nightly basis and once he channels his emotions, he will become an elite sniper in this league.
Read More: Five Reasons To Believe The Edmonton Oilers Will Make The 2014 NHL Playoffs
Nomination #3: D – Jonas Brodin (MIN)
To do what the 19-year old Jonas Brodin has done this year is actually quite remarkable. The former 10th overall pick from 2011 had one of the most successful rookie seasons for a defenseman in recent memory.
At face value, there’s nothing extraordinary about this season for Brodin. His Hockey Reference bio has him at 166 lbs, he registered 11 points in 45 games (slightly under a 20 point pace for a full year) and was merely a +3. A solid season but not eye-popping by any stretch, right?
Not so fast. That +3 rating was the highest among all Minnesota defensemen with at least 20 games played. He also finished second on the Wild in time on ice/game at 23:13 and only played a little over a minute less than Ryan Suter at 5 on 5.
Brodin also finished second among regular Wild defensemen in On-Ice Corsi with 1.88. That is impressive in itself but here are two things to consider when I say that this is more impressive than it seems:
- He had the lowest percentage of offensive zone starts (46.9%) among all regular Wild defensemen. While you can debate the actual effect of zone starts, Brodin clearly had coach Mike Yeo’s complete confidence as he was starting in the defensive zone so frequently.
- Brodin played the hardest minutes of all Wild defensemen (Suter included). Keep that in mind: A 19-year old rookie defenseman who weighs under 170 lbs played tougher minutes than a likely Norris Trophy nominee. And the team played relatively the best with him on the ice than any Minnesota defenseman at 5 on 5.
Without a doubt, Brodin flew under the radar this year. Playing in Minnesota helps hide a player from the mainstream media but his contributions are not lost on those that pay attention. Being a rookie defenseman in this league is much more difficult than being a rookie forward, in my opinion, so what Brodin did is very, very impressive.
My Pick: Jonathan Huberdeau
What Huberdeau was able to do with so little around him was very impressive. Brodin had a very successful rookie season and in the end it was very close for me. Hockey is all about scoring and that’s exactly what Huberdeau did (on a relatively poor team).
Honorable Mentions
Other rookies had great years as well. Brendan Gallagher was very good but played pretty easy minutes. Brandon Saad was a +17 but I’m pretty sure I’d be a plus-player on a line with Jonathan Toews. Others had good seasons as well but those are the three I saw stand out and a couple others that were very good.
Disagree? Feel free to comment or tweet me and I’d love to talk about this further!
