The Race for the Calder Trophy

[Guttersniped]

Faber is having a historic season for a rookie defenseman. Is Bedard having an historic season for a rookie center?

What’s historic about it?

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

What’s historic about it?

For Faber? His ice time.

Not sure about Bedard.

 

[EbonyRaptor]

Not defending the idea to take anything out of the equation, but your hypothetical was equally as useless in determing the Calder winner.

You may not have explicitly stated future projections or potential, but bringing it up in the form of a trade inherently requires you to consider it. Because the trade implication goes beyond this year, and presumably with two rookies, goes on for many years after this year. Which is 100% irrelevant to the Calder.

One of the main problems with these threads that go on forever is the original topic morphs into tangents that evoke comments from commenters who have not followed along and therefore their reactions are misplaced.

I have posted several times in this thread that the age of the player is not a factor in the actual voting for the Calder and my hypothetical was not intended to suggest age is a factor.

The discussion has ranged over several tangential topics including age and part of that discussion was how impressive the player was based on their age. Into that discussion I offered the hypothetical. That's it. It wasn't implicitly stating Bedard should win the Calder because he's 3 years younger - especially when I had already explicitly stated age is not a factor in Calder voting.

 

[BHawk21]

In the end, it was 5 points that separated them. But the argument was: Robertson's season was more impressive because of his age.

Thats a fine argument to make about the seasons of the two players but doesnt have to do with the Calder. Whats your point?

Bedard has more points then Kaprizov when he won at 24. Six years older lol

For Faber? His ice time.

Not sure about Bedard.

Ice time vs top 10 PPG Rookie center in the last 35 years.

Other factors that will be considered for voters whether you deem fair or not- Being 18, having nobody to play with, being dubbed the next great player.

 

[AKL]

One of the main problems with these threads that go on forever is the original topic morphs into tangents that evoke comments from commenters who have not followed along and therefore their reactions are misplaced.

I have posted several times in this thread that the age of the player is not a factor in the actual voting for the Calder and my hypothetical was not intended to suggest age is a factor.

The discussion has ranged over several tangential topics including age and part of that discussion was how impressive the player was based on their age. Into that discussion I offered the hypothetical. That's it. It wasn't implicitly stating Bedard should win the Calder because he's 3 years younger - especially when I had already explicitly stated age is not a factor in Calder voting.

It's not about age, it's about future value.

If you phrase the prompt as anything similar to "which would you rather have moving forward" or "if there was a trade, who says no" or "who would you pick to build around" or "if you were offered one for free which would you take"

Inherent in all of those is the implication that you get them for more than one year, not just this year. The Calder trophy is about which one has been the better player this year only.

Of course everyone should take Bedard if you're considering which one you'd rather have 2+ years into the future, but that's entirely irrelevant to the Calder trophy.

Which one should people take this year? It's a far more interesting discussion than Hawks fans and other Bedard supporters would admit. I'm not saying the correct answer is necessarily Faber, but he has a very strong case if you include all 200 feet of the ice, which you should include before you even bring up something like age (which despite what you're saying in this post, I'm pretty sure you've mentioned should be used at least as a tiebreaker).

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Ice time vs top 10 PPG Rookie center in the last 35 years.

Other factors that will be considered for voters whether you deem fair or not- Being 18, having nobody to play with, being dubbed the next great player.

Faber is making history, with the most ice time by a rookie since they began tracking TOI. That's actually historic.

Bedard putting up a lot of points is impressive, but it's not historic - it didn't make history, not really all that close.

 

[AKL]

Ice time vs top 10 PPG Rookie center in the last 35 years.

Other factors that will be considered for voters whether you deem fair or not- Being 18, having nobody to play with, being dubbed the next great player.

These are the reasons Bedard will likely win the trophy. At the same time, they do not necessarily mean he is the better, more positively impactful player this season.

 

[Obvious Fabertism]

and yet they are very comparable in every category I actually posted.


So you think the blackhawks would be better off not playing Bedard 5 on 5?

You understand what raw Corsi and Fenwick are right? They are just shot attempts for vs against. Using all situations when one guy plays way more PK than PP is deceptive. You are always going to have more shots against than for in that scenario. Every category you posted about says extremely little about player quality or impact, hits and blocks have almost no predictive power.

Minnesota Wild defenders, score and venue adjusted 5v5: Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Chicago Blackhawks defenders, score and venue adjusted 5v5: Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Use whatever filters you want, Seth Jones has horrible results while getting fed more than 50% Offensive zone starts. There are reasons that the models put Seth Jones in the category of worst contract value, he plays a lot of minutes, very poorly. This at least did give me a little clarity on why Blackhawks fans think TOI is meaningless, Seth Jones getting that much ice time really is a travesty.

 

[MuckOG]

Thats a fine argument to make about the seasons of the two players but doesnt have to do with the Calder. Whats your point?

Bedard has more points then Kaprizov when he won at 24. Six years older lol

It had everything to do with the 2021 Calder Trophy.

2021 was the COVID shortened season, so it would be no surprise that Bedard has more points.

 

[AKL]

2021 was the COVID shortened season, so it would be no surprise that Bedard has more points.

I had to double take on that one

 

[16thOverallSaveUs]

Somebody shoot this thread into the sun

 

[ryan callahan]

Bedard's rookie season being argued as historic LMAO. PP merchant.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Bedard's rookie season being argued as historic LMAO. PP merchant.

Same % of points coming on the PP as McDavid. Is McDavid a pp merchant?

 

[ryan callahan]

Same % of points coming on the PP as McDavid. Is McDavid a pp merchant?

McDavid's line doesn't get cratered at 5v5. Difference.

 

[State of Hockey]

I guess Faber needs to do a better job of covering the point man. Oh wait, that's not his job. His job is preventing chances in high danger areas, which he does extremely well.


This is an incredibly dumb take. Faber matches up against the best players in the league on a nightly basis and still comes out on top. That is what #1 shutdown defenseman do.

Why did you not also post the graph of 5 on 5 without Faber for proper context? Is it because it doesn't fit your narrative? I guess thanks for posting one of the stats I'm using to build my argument. The number to look at isn't 2.28. Nor is it the specifics of the graph. There's no context. If you notice, the entire team is good in 5 on 5 xGA, so clearly there's a good team defense culture at play here (we've been xGA darlings for a while, but it doesn't translate to real life). What matters is his relative xGA. The team's 5 on 5 xGA without him only increases .04 GA to 2.32. That's a small difference, smaller than Brodin, Bogosian, and even Merrill. Are Bogosian and Merrill shutdown defensemen? By this metric and your logic, yes, even more so than Faber!

Now it's not unusual for top defensemen to have relatively small splits in this area. They're likely playing against top opponents more often, so their superior defense is being counteracted by playing against superior offense. But you see this is another example of where the narrative of Faber breaks down. We're being told that the Wild's defense corps is weak and has been injury-plagued this year, and that Faber has largely carried the team through it. No one is arguing the former isn't true, but what about the latter? If Faber has been truly this good, and he's played nearly the entire season with a solid to very good partner (Middleton or Brodin) as we already established, then why isn't his team getting bludgeoned when he's not on the ice? If he's really a shutdown guy, surely teams work to avoid having their top forwards face his pairing. So why are his stats only minutely better than when he's not playing? How do 6th/7th guys like Bogosian and Merrill have superior stats? Compare Faber to established defensemen such as Heiskanen, Fox or Maker. Now that is a large 5 on 5 split when they're not on the ice. That's we would like to see statically for a "shutdown defensemen". And remember those defensive corps are deep, so it's not easy for them to play their way into a large gap without a large drop-off to the 6th guy.

Let's top it off with a player mentioned already--Seth Jones. This is what you expect to see when you're a very good player with a good partner (Vlasic) surrounded by a bad defense--large splits. With those two, The Hawks are competent defensively. Without them, it's ugly. That's what carrying a bad defense looks like. That's more like what Faber's stats should be if his pairing was carrying a bad defense. My point continues to be confirmed. There's no stat that says Faber is a "shutdown defensemen". Far from it actually. There's been a false narrative built around him, and every stat shows it. He's had a very good rookie season, but he's not yet the player he's been made into.

 

[2for1PizzaPastuh]

everyone here knows Bedard's gonna win

 

[Toby91ca]

In the end, it was 5 points that separated them. But the argument was: Robertson's season was more impressive because of his age.

I wouldn't share that argument though....if the two guys finished close in points, I'd then look at goals, if they were close there too, I might then lean to the younger guy as tiebreaker....in this case you don't get there as there was a significant difference in goals. Also, as noted, I wouldn't have put much weight on the age thing for that comparison either, it's much different than an 18 year coming into the league.

 

[Happyhary9]

This thread is so ridiculous at this point.

 

[SmytheKing]

This thread is so ridiculous at this point.
View attachment 842685

It's also just a dumb thing to argue about in general. Both players are having Calder worthy seasons and one of them has to lose. It's going to come down to what the voters value more. I think it'll be close, but Bedard will likely win because of the fanfare coming in giving him the edge. Folks often think someone meeting the high expectations is more impressive than exceeding lower ones.

 

[Obvious Fabertism]

It's also just a dumb thing to argue about in general. Both players are having Calder worthy seasons and one of them has to lose. It's going to come down to what the voters value more. I think it'll be close, but Bedard will likely win because of the fanfare coming in giving him the edge. Folks often think someone meeting the high expectations is more impressive than exceeding lower ones.

Welcome and congratulations, you have a controversial opinion in this topic. It’s Bedard’s even if he doesn’t play another game and you would be a fool to suggest it’s close… at least that seems to be the HFBoards general consensus.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, why do we need to compare Faber against Heiskanen, Fox and Makar in a Calder discussion again?

Bedard's season seems pretty "meh" compared to Kucherov, MacKinnon and McDavid.

Maybe both are overrated. Any decent rookie goalie we can give all the votes to?

 

[EbonyRaptor]

Somebody shoot this thread into the sun

Best comment in the thread.

 

[CallMeShaft]

Does any rookie have a stronger case for the Calder Trophy than Connor Bedard?

Connor Bedard has met all expectations as an 18-year-old rookie, but Minnesota's Brock Faber has gained momentum in the Calder Trophy discussion. What's his case? Adam Vingan dives in.

www.sportsnet.ca

In any other season, Faber probably would be voted the top rookie in the league. But Bedard has lived up to the hype, producing at an 80-point pace over 82 games with an unimpressive supporting cast. (The two Blackhawks forwards who have shared the most ice time with Bedard at even strength are Philipp Kurashev and Nick Foligno.
Although Bedard is the likely winner of the Calder Trophy, Faber should not be too far behind on the ballot.

Article from today.

 

[tfwnogf]

Bedard is a near ppg player playing on an ahl team as an 18 year old. It's not close. Ice time is nice and all but Bedard makes the most with what he's given.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Nice assist for Bedard there. Unfortunately, he won't get credited with a point because it was a goal for the other team.

I'm surprised at how long of a leash his been given. You want him to feel comfortable making reasonable mistakes, but it doesn't feel like he's being held accountable for his poor defensive decision making.