The Athletic’s Eric Duhsatchek discusses Moritz Seider’s very early-season candidacy for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie this evening, noting that it’s not easy for a defenseman to win the award:
There is always considerable interest in the NHL’s rookie race, and a question was posed about the chances of the Red Wings’ fine prospect, Moritz Seider, actually challenging for the Calder. My answer is yes, for a couple of reasons. One: Voters are more willing than ever to look at defencemen in rookie of the year balloting. For a long time, it was a black hole. From 1990, when Sergei Makarov won the Calder, until 2014, when it went to Nathan MacKinnon, only three defencemen won the award: Bryan Berard in 1997, Barret Jackman in 2003 and Tyler Myers in 2010.
Since then, we’ve seen Aaron Ekblad (2015) and Cale Makar (2020) win the Calder and in Makar’s year, two other defencemen were in contention for the award (Quinn Hughes and Adam Fox). This year’s race could be interesting, because the two odds-on favorites up front, Zegras and Montreal’s Cole Caufield, have been slow off the mark offensively. In theory, you could see three defencemen in the running again: Seider, Colorado’s Bowen Byram and Anaheim’s Drysdale. One thing Jason Robertson’s unexpected Calder challenge last year taught us: There’s always going to be one candidate that comes from a little off the grid to make it a race. Maybe Seider is that candidate this season.
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