This week the NHL officially named the three candidates for the Calder Trophy. To absolutely no one’s surprise, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere was selected as a finalist giving the team its best shot at producing a rookie of the year for the first time in franchise history.
But in typical 2015-16 Flyers fashion, the going won’t be easy.
Standing in Gostisbehere and the Flyers way is Artemi Panarin. The Chicago Blackhawks rookie went on a tear this season with linemates Patrick Kane and Artem Anisimov. His 77-point campaign would be the 13th-best total among Calder Trophy winners ranking him between Luc Robitaille in 1986-87 and Bobby Smith in 1978-79. He’d also rack up the most points since Evgeni Malkin produced 85 in 2006-2007.
Yet, there are some who believe Panarin shouldn’t be considered for the award due to his experience at the professional level, namely the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia. Panarin played in 170 KHL games, scored 52 goals and produced 132 points in his seven seasons there.
Wayne Gretzky played one season in the now defunct WHA and lost his eligibility for the award. The Great One’s NHL rookie campaign would be a Calder Trophy record (137 points) if he had been eligible. Instead, that distinction belongs to Teemu Selanne, who registered 132 points in his first NHL season.
The argument here, however, is moot as the NHL rules allow Panarin to be a finalist and with his impressive season, he’ll be a hard egg to crack.
Gostisbehere’s other competition is Connor McDavid, who boasts some impressive stats. He produced 48 points in 45 games that’s good for 1.07 per game while playing for the habitually awful Edmonton Oilers.
Though McDavid has the points per game advantage, he and Panarin scored goals at practically the same rate. McDavid tallied 0.36 goals per game and Panarin did so with 0.38 rate.
What will ultimately hold McDavid back is that he only played in those 45 contests compared to Gostisbehere’s 64 and Panarin’s 79. His presence on the ballot could help split the forward vote though.
Similarly, when some thought Johnny Gaudreau was the surefire Calder winner last season, Mark Stone’s late season surge created a much tighter race than most expected. With the vote split amongst the three players, Stone and Gaudreau were separated by only 52 polling points allowing Aaron Ekblad to win it all by 69.
Speaking of Ekblad, if one would use his rookie campaign as a benchmark than Gostisbehere would exceed it. Ghost produced 5.4 offensive, 3.5 defensive for a total of 8.9 point shares while Ekblad had 8.5. Though, in all fairness, Ekblad produced those numbers at 18 years old.
His performance is also comparable to Tyler Myers’ first campaign in 2009-10. The lanky defenseman scored 11 goals and registered 48 points while generating 9.8 points shares. Gostisbehere scored 17 goals and 46 points with 8.9 points shares this past season.
The same goes for Bryan Berard’s rookie season. The Islanders rookie scored 48 points as well. All told, Gostisbehere’s 46 points would be the seventh most of any Calder winning defenseman.
Yet, there is a caveat. A Calder win would make Gostisbehere the oldest defenseman to earn the honor since Kent Douglas in 1962-63. Since 1964, the only blueliners that were 18-21 years old came away with the rookie of the year award.
So how does Gostisbehere win? The prevailing thought is impact. Panarin went to a good team and essentially replaced Brandon Saad. Without Panarin, the Chicago Blackhawks are still one of the NHL’s elite teams and definitely make the playoffs.
Without McDavid, the Oilers are still up for a lottery pick because building a blueline continues to elude them.
That’s not to question how both those young players make their respective teams better. They certainly do so with a tremendous amount of skill, but Gostisbehere meant more for this past season. He was the most valuable rookie to his team.
Ghost acted as a shot in the arm for a floundering Flyers team. After joining Philadelphia when Mark Streit was sidelined, the Flyers went 34-19-11 with Gostisbehere in the line-up. The majority of his goals altered the game, by either tying it or winning it, in a crucial fashion.
Without Gostisbehere there’s no doubt this past season’s Flyers miss the playoffs.
Will that be enough for voters? Maybe, maybe not. But when these races are as close as they’ve been for the past few seasons, anything can tilt the polls in one direction or another. After all, points, shares and everything mentioned above are great things to consider, but at the end of the day winning is the name of the game.
And Gostisbehere’s emergence created more wins for Philadelphia than anyone thought prior to this season.
Dan Heaning is a contributing writer for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Heaning.
