A third of the 2025-26 NHL season is already in the books, and the rookie scoring race (and Calder Trophy race) promises to be much tighter than last season. As you’ll now doubt recall, Lane Hutson led all rookies in scoring for much of the previous campaign and ended the year with 66 points in 82 games, three points clear of Philadelphia Flyers’ rookie Matvei Michkov.

This time around, the hope for Montreal Canadiens’ fans was that Ivan Demidov would be dominating the rookie stats, but so far, he’s had some pretty serious competition. As things stand, the Anaheim Ducks’ Beckett Sennecke is leading the way with 24 points in 29 games, just two points ahead of Demidov, who has a game in hand. New York Islanders’ standout defenseman Matthew Schaefer has 21 points in 30 games with a plus-nine differential and averages a staggering 23:27 on the ice.

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Washington Capitals’ winger Ryan Leaonard has 18 points in 29 games, and  Oliver Kapanen rounds up the top five with 14 points in 28 games. Demidov leads all rookies on assists with 16, while Kapanen is one of four rookies with eight goals, one less than leader Sennecke.

After a red-hot start to the season, Jakub Dobes had gotten himself in the conversation in October, but his less-than-stellar November hasn’t been great stats-wise. Still, he leads all rookie goaltenders in wins with 10, tied with Yaroslav Askarov. His 3.03 goals-against average is only the seventh-best amongst rookie masked men. Meanwhile, his save percentage now stands at .890, which is the 10th-highest amongst the same group. It’s safe to say that he’s lost a lot of ground in that race, especially with Jesper Wallstedt having some impressive numbers: 1.95 GAAV and .936 SV with eight wins in 11 starts.

It's too early to predict who’s going to win the Calder or even the winner of the scoring race now, but we’ve got a few exciting months left in store.

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