An 18-year-old defenseman is shattering expectations, logging elite minutes and dominating the early Calder Trophy race against a loaded rookie class.
The Calder trophy race is heating up through the first few weeks of the season with a new front runner emerging that nobody saw coming. There's likely no experts that predicted the start to the season that New York's Matthew Schaefer is having.
With a goal and three assists for a point-per-game average through 4 contests, the Islanders defenseman isn't just leading his team in points but he's also near the top of the league in points by defenseman. The Hamilton native finds himself in line with names like Quinn Hughes, Jakob Chychrun, Victor Hedman, Vince Dunn and Brandon Montour to start the season with an even more impressive stat when it comes to his minutes.
Schaefer has quickly worked his way up the ranks to New York's top defensive pairing, not to mention he's also been placed on the team's top power play unit. The former top pick with his massive role at just 18 years old is averaging 21:53 of ice-time, placing him ahead of established blueliners like Dougie Hamilton, Vince Dunn, Darnell Nurse, Ryan McDonagh, Thomas Chabot, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson among others.
Being given such a massive opportunity and role is exactly the case that would present well at the end of the season when it comes to deciding a Calder trophy winner. Schaefer most certainly won't continue his 82-point pace throughout the season but if he can finish as a defenseman with 50-60 points plus have the resume of a power play quarterback as well as logging some of the heaviest minutes in the entire league, he will have a bulletproof case to win the award.
Rookies around him like Montreal's Ivan Demidov, Anahiem's Beckett Sennecke and St. Louis' Jimmy Snuggerud have all seen solid starts to the season but the closest comparable for Schaefer's resume will come from Minnesota's Zeev Buium.
The 19-year-old blueliner isn't getting top line minutes as he finds himself on the bottom defense pairing but his five points through four games to start the season may quickly see his role change. Like Schaefer, Buium is also on the top power play and will likely get more chances to produce points as the Wild have midly better talent with star forwards like Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy compared to New York's Mat Barzal and Bo Horvat.
The race for the Calder will firmly run through these two as they look to overcome a historical hurdle of defensemen having no won the Calder trophy in consecutive years since since 1963 and 1964, when Toronto’s Kent Douglas and Montreal’s Jacques Laperrière achieved the rare feat, the only consecutive defenseman wins in Calder Trophy history.
Schaefer and Buium will look to follow in Montreal Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson's footsteps with winning the award but it won't come without it's challenges as the rookie class for this season is more loaded than ever. Schaefer has seen his odds for the award take a drastic jump up to +320 and ranking just behind Demidov with the second-best odds to win while Buium finds himself in the picture at +400 with the third-best odds. Both players resumes will continue to form with time quickly running out on value in this award race.
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