Buffalo Sabres Jack Eichel Overlooked In Calder Trophy Race

Is Buffalo’s brightest star a victim of media bias?

Buffalo Sabres rookie Jack Eichel has been holding down the second-place spot among all NHL rookies for quite some time now. Following his assist against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, he boasts a stat line of 23-28-51, is currently tied for second in goals scored and has dished out the fourth-most assists among his fellow rookies this year.

And he will be lucky if he finishes fourth in the Calder Trophy voting.

Let’s clear a few things up before we go any farther. First, winning the Calder Trophy means nothing in the long run. Neither Wayne Gretzky nor Sidney Crosby won the Calder, and it would appear that they turned out all right. Tyler Myers did win the Calder, and . . . yeah. The only trophy that really matters to an NHL player is Lord Stanely’s Cup, end of story.

Second, since Eichel has no chance of finishing first in the voting, debating where he ultimately finished when it is all said would normally come across as pretty silly – there’s no consolation prize here. You either win the Calder Trophy, or you don’t. Move on.

So: the trophy doesn’t really matter, and this conversation is fairly pointless.

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Except it does, and this isn’t.

Look: if a professional sports league such as the NHL is going to hand out individual awards, it stands to reason that said league has to take those damn awards seriously. The more defined the criteria for determining who wins an award such as the Calder Trophy, the less room there is for people to abuse the system. But the only criteria the NHL sets when it comes to rookie of the year voting is that the player

be the most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League; and
must be 26 or younger on September 16 of his rookie season.

That’s it – no minimum number of games played, no stipulation about whether the player has earned a paycheck playing professional hockey oversees, nada. All of which opens the door for controversial scenarios, such as Artemi Panarin winning despite the fact he spent four years playing in the KHL, or Connor McDavid becoming the last-minute favorite based on a sample size of just three months.

Even worse, because the criteria for the Calder Trophy voting is so vague, the interpretation of the phrase “most proficient rookie” is entirely up to the writers who are voting. So, in spite of Chicago’s Patrick Kane giving his linemate Panarin a ton of credit for the success that Kane has enjoyed this season, and in spite of the fact that no one can hold Panarin’s time spent in the KHL against him, many writers are going to penalize Panarin exactly because of the time he spent in Russia, even though he has led all rookies in scoring right from the get-go. Hey – even I have argued that Panarin should not be considered a rookie, but dammit, I’m not casting a vote. If I was, and I have the words “most proficient in his first year of competition in the NHL” running through my head as I consider my options, I’m giving Panarin my first place vote, because he leads all rookies in goals scored and assists.

Now that’s proficient – but the more I read from writers who WILL cast a vote, it is becoming pretty clear that they are, in fact, going to pass on awarding Panarin the Calder, because of a stipulation they wish the NHL had established, and because Panarin has spent his entire season skating alongside Kane.

So what players appear to have become the front-runners now that hockey writers have unfairly decided to hold two things against Panarin? Why, Edmonton’s McDavid and Shayne Gostisbehere of the Philadelphia Flyers. While McDavid has been phenomenal the past two months, the fact that he has become one of the front-runners is a little bit ridiculous. Allow me to quote ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun:

There is zero debate who the best rookie in the NHL is, that’s the 19-year-old McDavid by a mile. But the best rookie campaign? That’s debatable because many voters will have a hard time giving McDavid a first-place vote after missing almost half the season.

The case against McDavid sounds logical enough to me – since McDavid has really only played three months of the 2015-16 season, it’s impossible to say how prolific he would have been had he skated for 70+ games. Plenty of rookies come out hot – Dylan Larkin – and then slow down, due to the grind of an 82-game season. It may not be fair to see that McDavid’s scoring would have dropped as the season wore on him, but it’s also not fair to look at his 1.07 points per game and assume that he would have maintained that pace had he not been injured.

Even LeBrun, though, admits that he could give McDavid a first-place vote if more scouts and writers feel like he has earned it, while Steve Dryden over at TSN argues that McDavid should not only be a lock for the Calder Trophy, he should actually be garnering votes for the Hart Memorial Trophy, as well. Dryden’s argument hinges on the fact that, since his return in February, McDavid has amassed more points than all but two players in the league: Sidney Crosby, and Joe Thornton. That’s great – but we don’t hand out YEARLY awards for two months of results, now do we?

And then we have Gostisbehere, who is only seventh in scoring among rookies. His case is strengthened by his 15-game point streak that ran from January 19 to February 20, and the fact that he is playing meaningful minutes on a team that is making a playoff push – a fact that LeBrun claims “should count for something,” even though the same could be said for Panarin, who is actually LOSING votes because he skates on a good line for a playoff team. Of course, voters who hold Panarin’s playing alongside Kane conveniently ignore the fact that Gostisbehere routinely skates with players such as Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek, and that he starts 63% of all shifts in the offensive zone, which means the Flyers are shielding him from having to defend their opponents’ best players, which kind of blows up LebRun’s argument that Gostisbehere should win the Calder based on “how much harder it is to break into this league as a defenseman.”

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Let’s recap: Panarin has consistently led the league in scoring the entire season, but gets dinged for years of experience and the fact that he plays on a good team alongside good players. McDavid has led the season in scoring for only three months (ignored), partly because he plays with natural scores such as Taylor Hall (25 goals) and Jordan Eberle (25 goals) – also ignored. And Gostisbehere plays with good players (ignored) on a pretty good team (ignored) and barely starts his shifts on defense even though he is a defenseman (seriously ignored).

And there’s your three Calder Trophy finalists, ladies and gentlemen, guarantee it.

Lost in the conversation – at least the majority of ones that I have read, and believe me, I have searched long and hard – is Jack Eichel. Is it because he has not played in enough games? Actually, he leads all rookies in games played with 77, having only missed one game all season due to illness. Hmmm. Okay – maybe his name is not getting thrown out there because he plays with elite talent, which would have caused his numbers to be inflated? Sure – if you consider Zemgus Girgensons and fellow rookie Sam Reinhart to be elite players. Huh. Maybe he’s being penalized because he begins 61.6% of his shifts in the offensive zone? Uh, that’s less than Gostisbehere – again, a defenseman! – and Panarin, and pretty much identical to how often McDavid starts a shift on offense (60.8%).

Yep. Eichel is getting slighted simply because he plays for the Buffalo Sabres.

Okay – that last part is probably just the paranoid Sabres fan in me rearing its ugly head, but still, the fact that Eichel’s name has all but disappeared from the Calder Trophy talk is unnerving. The kid is 19, plays on a bottom-10 team, leads all rookie forwards in TOI per game and yet still has managed to play 77 out of a possible 78 games, and is a huge reason why the Buffalo Sabres have more points (+21), wins (+9), more goals (+28) and a better +/- (-22, compared to last season’s -113) than last year’s team.

You tell me, then, why Jack Eichel will be lucky to be one of the three finalists in the running for the 2016 Calder Trophy.

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