Buffalo Sabres Jack Eichel Disrespected In Calder Trophy Voting, As Expected
The Buffalo Sabres get treated like the NHL’s ugly stepchild yet again.
The NHL announced the three finalists for the 2016 Calder Trophy Award on Monday, and as expected, Buffalo Sabres rookie Jack Eichel was not included.
Your Calder Trophy finalists are...https://t.co/yIjEHJSI0l #NHLAwards pic.twitter.com/o3boV75ZIy
— NHL (@NHL) May 3, 2016
Buffalo went from 54 to 81 points. @Jack_Eichel11 was 19 when season started & led them in goals & game winning goals. Not a Calder finalist
— BucciOT.Com (@Buccigross) May 2, 2016
It’s tough to wrap your head around Eichel’s omission – is this a case of the members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association penalizing Eichel for playing in Buffalo? Penalizing him for not being Canadian-born? Both? Neither?
I don’t dabble in conspiracy theories and rumor-spreading, so I am not going to touch any of the questions I posed above with a ten-foot pole. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of people who disagree with Eichel’s being left out.
Jack Eichel is not one of the Calder Trophy finalists, but do you think he should have been? https://t.co/yIuxELJJVg
— WGRZ (@WGRZ) May 3, 2016
Part of me wants to rage on NHL for not nominating Jack Eichel for the Calder. Other part of me laughs at the intellectual dishonesty of it
— SabresBuzz (@SabresBuzz) May 2, 2016
Jack Eichel was not nominated for the Calder Trophy...is what I hope he thinks to himself every time he heads to the gym this summer.
— Die By The Blade (@diebytheblade) May 2, 2016
In the long run, making the top 3 would not have mattered much, since you have to assume that Artemi Panarin is going to win. Reservations about his age and the fact that played in the KHL for four seasons aside (valid as they are), Panarin had the best season from start to finish out of any of the players that the NHL considers rookies, so it would be stunning if he did not take home the hardware. There is a slight chance that Shayne Gostisbehere could steal the trophy out from under Panarin’s nose, however, as some writers may penalize Panarin for his professional experience and consider what Ghost Bear did as a defenseman more impressive.
But if Connor McDavid wins . . . .
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This is where any sane person has a problem with the finalists for the Calder Trophy. Telling me that McDavid averaged more points per game than Eichel did is great, until you remember that McDavid missed 37 games due to injury and certainly would not have maintained his prolific scoring over the span of an 82-game season. Also, McDavid’s Oilers were still the same kind of dreadful team that they were back in 2014-15 (their second-to-last finish in the league standings was actually worse than their third-to-last finish in 14-15), while the Buffalo Sabres improved from last in the league with 54 points in 14-15 to 23rd with 81 points in 15-16. Clearly, not all of that success can be attributed to Eichel, but since he was second on his team in scoring, you have to give him tons of credit for Buffalo’s turnaround.
Meh. There’s only so much raging against the machine you can do before you come across as a whiner, so we’ll let the conversation end here. All you can hope is that Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres in general use this slight to pour a little more fuel on the fire as they look ahead to proving the rest of the league wrong in 2016-17.