Calder Trophy Finalists – Nail Yakupov & Justin Schultz

One could make the argument that Schultz should be in the conversation for the NHL Calder Trophy after putting up 8 goals and 19 assists in 48 games.  After discussing how Yakupov was snubbed from the Calder finalists, both he and Schultz provided plenty of spark all season long and certainly lived up the hype that they brought during the summer.

But in the end there can only be one winner and when looking at the plus/minus, the winner is Yakupov after finishing with a minus-4 compared to Schultz’s minus-17.  Schultz actually had the lowest rating on the club, meaning he will need to brush up on his defense for next season.

Norris Trophy Finalists – Justin Schultz, Ladislav Smid & Jeff Petry

It’s easy to mention Schultz in this category given  he led the Oilers blue-liners in points but his minus-17 is cause for concern.  We’re talking about the top defenseman who should be held accountable in his own end and it’s hard to make that argument for Schultz.

Meanwhile Smid and Petry had solid seasons from their own respects.  Smid was his usual stubborn self, blocking shots and often pairing up against the opposing team’s top players.

Petry’s numbers were impressive, 3 goals and 9 assists in 48 games while posting a respectable plus-1 on the season.  He also finished second on the team with 112 hits to Smid’s 151 and had 86 blocked shots to Smid’s 119.

Winner – Ladislav Smid, for the reason’s just mentioned.  He’s as steady as they come and despite not putting up a lot of points, he was the best defender on this club.

Vezina Trophy 

Given there are only two netminders worth talking about, there’s no point in having them listed as nominees.  As a matter of fact, the race for the top goalie isn’t that close either with Devan Dubnyk taking it in a landslide.

He played more than three times as many minutes than Nikolai Khabibulin while putting up almost identical numbers in GAA 2.57 to 2.54 (Khaby) and a .920 save percentage to Khaby’s .923%.  Not to mention that Dubnyk started in 37 games to Khabibulin’s 11 while picking up a record of 14-16-6 with two shutouts.

Hart Trophy Finalists – Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle & Sam Gagner

Given it’s Gagner’s contract year it’s not surprising he turned a lot of heads this year with his 14 goals and 38 points in 48 games.  Eberle also had a solid season, scoring 16 times en route to 37 points, good enough for third on the team.

But this award belongs to Taylor Hall this year.  Not only did he lead the team in points with 50 in 45 games (good for 9th in league scoring) but his 34 assists alone would rank him third on the team in scoring.  He was a solid plus-5 and had 4 powerplay goals and 4 game winning goals, the most on the team.

He continues to play with reckless abandon which is cause for concern to some.  I say it’s what makes him so successful.  He plays hard and leads by example.  He wants to win and will go a long way in leading this club to the playoffs, which could be next year.  Depending on how the off-season goes of course.

The three players that were nominated for the Calder award are Brendan Gallagher of the Montreal Canadiens, Jonathan Huberdeau of the Florida Panthers and Brandon Saad of the Chicago Blackhawks.  All had fine seasons, some more impressive than others.  Huberdeau tied Yakupov atop the rookie scoring race, each with 31 points in 48 games.  Gallagher had 28 points in 44 games while Saad recorded 27 points in 46 games.  So far you might be saying that nothing really stands out that could make the argument that Yakupov was snubbed.  Let’s look a little deeper.

The former first overall pick in last year’s draft, Yakupov led all rookies with 17 goals and had a shooting percentage of 21.0%.  The next closest was Gallagher with 15 goals and a shooting percentage of 12.8%.  Huberdeau had 14 tallies and Saad scored 10 times.  Two points for Yakupov.

As far as assists, Yakupov was a few behind both Huberdeau and Saad who each finished with 17 while Gallagher had 13 helpers.  For this we’ll give the points to the Panthers and Habs’ rookies.

The critics feel that Yakupov wasn’t consistent enough and they use the fact that 15 of his points were scored in the month of April over the final 14 games.  However, he was the only of the four we’ve mentioned that recorded a hat-trick and led them all with 6 power-play goals.  Two more points for Yakupov.

Aside from the three-goal game on the final day of the regular season, Yakupov had two other multi-goal games.  Huberdeau had two, Saad one and Gallagher never scored more than one goal in any game.  Point Yakupov.

When it came to multi-point games, Huberdeau led that category with 7, Yakupov with 5, Gallagher with 5 and Saad with 4.  It worth noting however that Yakupov’s first multi-point game didn’t come until April 1st, something that could add to the inconsistency argument.

But Yakupov was the only one who put together a 6-game point streak, two games longer than Saad’s best and three better than what both Huberdeau and Gallagher accomplished.

Furthermore on the inconsistency note, Yakupov never went more than four games without recording at least one point, the same as Gallagher.  Interestingly enough Huberdeau went five straight games without a point twice in the season while Saad didn’t record his first point until the 9th game of the season.  In fact, Saad had only 3 points in the first 18 games.  Suddenly inconsistent play may not fall under Yakupov’s name.

There was the plus/minus where Yakupov was a decent minus-4 on the season.  Saad ran away with this category with a plus-4, but keep in mind he does play for the Blackhawks who scored a plethora of goals this season while giving up the fewest.  Gallagher was a plus-10 while Huberdeau was a minus-15.

So when you dig into the numbers it’s hard to say that the three finalists are the best representative of the top rookies for the 2012-13 season.  Nail Yakupov played well enough all season long to at least be nominated.  So who would I bump in favor of Yakupov?  To me the final three  nominees should be Yakupov, Huberdeau and Saad (for his tremendous play in the second half).  I do think that Jonas Brodin of the Minnesota Wild deserves to be in the conversation, further adding to the conclusion that the finalists may not be the right choices. Especially Yakupov.  He was snubbed, plain and simple.