SHARKSPAGE

2010-11 Calder Trophy race a two-man affair between San Jose Sharks center Logan Couture and Carolina Hurricanes forward Jeff Skinner

SHARKS CENTER #39 LOGAN COUTURE LEADS ROOKIES WITH 212 SOG

CAROLINA C #53 JEFF SKINNER LEADS ROOKIE SCORING RACE WITH 50PTS

2010-11 NHL ROOKIE SCORING RACE

CALDER TROPHY RACE - ROOKIE GOALTENDING STATISTICS

The internal debate that rises to the top of the 2010-11 Calder Trophy race has to begin with how deep the field of qualified candidates is. The impact rookies are making this season is nearly unprecedented. Defenseman Cam Fowler and John Carlson are logging a gargantuan 22+ minutes a night on the blueline for the Anaheim Ducks and the Washington Capitals. Four rookie goaltenders are making significant impacts for their clubs, and the fifth, Vancouver Canucks goaltender Cory Schneider, may be playing his way out of Vancouver and into a starting position for another team given the near lifetime contract for Roberto Luongo. Despite the logjam of talented rookies, two clear favorites have seperated themselves this season, 18-year old Carolina Hurricanes forward Jeff Skinner and 21-year old San Jose Sharks center Logan Couture.

Created to recognize the top rookie in the league starting with the 1932–33 season, the honor was re-named as the ‘Calder Memorial Trophy’ following the death of former NHL President Frank Calder in 1943. Members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association (PHWA) vote for the Calder Trophy after the regular season, appropriate given Frank Calder’s lengthy tour of duty as a sports editor in Montreal and London. Trying to gauge the whims of the traditional hockey media prior to voting is a precarious affair, but Sergei Makarov’s Calder Trophy award in 1990 changed the landscape for the rookie trophy in the NHL. A 3-time Olympic medalist (including golds in 1994 at Sarajevo and 1988 in Calgary), 10-time World Championship medalist (8 golds), 11-time Russian Super League champion (3 MVP’s, 9 scoring titles) before he traveled to the NHL, Sergei Makarov was one of the most talented and respected players to play the game when he took home the Calder at age 31. The NHL ammended Calder eligibiliy to players who were 26 years old or younger by September 15th, those who have not played in more than 25 NHL games in any previous season, or those that have played professionally in 6 or more games in the previous 2 seasons.

Those amendments impacted a pair of current San Jose Sharks. Last season, before his spectacular playoff run then-Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Antti Niemi registered a 26-7-4 record with a 2.25GAA and .912SV% in the regular season. Those numbers would have put Niemi in the Calder conversation along with Detroit’s Jimmy Howard, but the Finland native missed the rookie age window by 17 days. Howard (37-15-10, 2.26GAA, .924SV%) finished second in the Calder voting to eventual winner Tyler Myers’ 94 first place votes. The Buffalo Sabres defenseman became only the third blueliner to win the rookie honor since 1990. San Jose Sharks rookie center Logan Couture bumped up against the 25 game rookie limit last season, and he hit the ground running in three playoff series rankling his inclusion for rookie consideration among some in the media.

ROTY criteria for this blog comes down to a few core elements: production, consistency, complete game and team impact. On the offensive side of the ledger, a case can be made for Skinner or Couture. The youngest player in the league, Jeff Skinner leads the scoring race with 50 points. He is a fixture on the power play (3:06 PPTOI/GM), logging a higher average time on ice with than man advantage than all but 1 other non-defenseman. Skinner also trails only Taylor Hall in number of penalties drawn (35). San Jose’s Couture is second in rookie scoring with 46 points, second in the rookie goal scoring race with 25, and first in shots with 212. He is tied with Taylor Hall for 8 power play goals, and league-wide he trails only Ovechkin, Kovalchuk and Daniel Sedin with 8 game winning goals.

“You can’t really get away from it,” Jeff Skinner told the Charolette Observer’s Chip Alexander last week of the relentless Calder speculation. “I’m not going to go looking for it, though. It’s not hard to put out of your mind when every day you come to the rink and it’s a big game. To be in the hunt, to be in the playoff mix, that’s what you’re really want.” Carolina is 4 points behind the final playoff position in the East with 13 games remaining. They need a heavy goal scoring push from their young rookie.

In a 3-zone comparison, Couture has to take the edge by a considerable margin. He trails only rookie Pittsburgh center Mark Letestu with a 373-342 (52.2%) mark from the faceoff circle, he is a +14 to Skinner’s -3 (similar to CORSI trends), and Skinner is not effectively used on the penalty kill (:02 to Couture’s 1:02 SHTOI/GM). Skinner and Couture have been consistently putting up solid offensive numbers for most of the season, trailing off only slightly in March. Team impact also favors Couture. While Skinner’s 24 goals represent 12.2% of Carolina’s total offense, the Hurricanes are completely out of the Southeast division race and trail the Rangers for the 8th and final playoff spot.

The Sharks were mired in an up and down start to the season, but offensive production by Logan Couture and Ryane Clowe helped buoy the team until the big guns could start firing. The Sharks have been on a torrid pace since mid-January, and Logan Couture consistently came up with enough big goals to give San Jose a shot at its 4th straight Pacific Division title and 7th straight playoff run. Couture’s 25 goals represent 12.8% of the Sharks total offense. An offense that sent an entire forward line to the gold medal winning Canadian Olympic team last year.

“I try not to think about individual awards,” Logan Couture told Mark Purdy of the Mercury News early last week. Purdy noticed Couture’s focus on defensive play, and speculated that he might garner consideration for the Selke Trophy as well as the Calder. “… We’re playing the way we’re supposed to play. Team defense. Five people back in the zone. Collapsing into the right areas when we have to do that. We’ve stuck to the way the coaching staff wants us to play,” Couture said.

There are a few ancillary elements that could also come into play for Calder voting: durability, visibility, style of play and head-to-head play. On the durability front, the 5-foot-11, 193-pound Skinner has played in all 69 of the Carolina Hurricane’s games. It is impressive given his style, a bowling ball, collision-heavy type of power forward game around the net. At San Jose in only his 5th NHL contest, Skinner tried to pull the trigger on 3 wrap-around goals and crashed the net several times. He registered an assist, 3 shots on goal, and was a matchup problem for the Sharks the entire night (poor quality photo shot through refs arms).

Logan Couture has played in 66 of San Jose’s 69 total games this season, impressive considering he only missed one game after suffering a brutal knee-on-knee hit by Colton Orr in January. The Sharks blazing pace in the second half of the season doesn’t happen with an injured Couture. While appearing somewhat soft spoken, Couture’s game is also shades of a bull in a china shop. He has shown zero concern for his own saftey setting up in front of the net, and at times he makes too much of an effort on an icing or a forecheck. That is quite a departure from a few insider scouting reports that listed his speed and skating as an issue after he was drafted. Instead, the scouts should have focused on his stick and body position in the defensive and neutral zones. Both have resulted in a steady stream of created turnovers and subsequent scoring chances. He plays a similar intelligent, determined 2-way game to current Sharks forward Joe Pavelski.

The great mitigating factor in the 2010-11 Calder race could be visibility, and it is the one element of the discussion that could hurt Logan Couture and Jeff Skinner the most. After first overall draft pick Taylor Hall was injured in a fight with veteran goon Derek Dorsett, the consensus favorite by the Canadian media was gone. That left a jockeying for position among rookie candidates in the media. Nevermind the fact that Hall was more of a perimeter player than either Jeff Skinner or Logan Couture, now the field was wide open. Rookie defenseman Cam Fowler and John Carlson had their supporters, there were also vocal factions for recently traded Kevin Shattenkirk and Montreal’s P.K. Subban.

Goaltending is a little bit of an open mystery. The sag in recent play for 2008–09 Calder winner Steve Mason has impacted the discussion. Mason’s numbers in 2008-09 (61GP, 33-20-7, 10SO, 2.29GAA, .916SV%) matched up somewhat with the 4 other Calder winning goaltenders post-Makarov: 1990–91 Ed Belfour (74GP, 43-19-7, 4SO, 2.47GAA, .910SV%), 1993–94 Martin Brodeur (47GP, 27-11-8, 3SO, 2.40GAA, .915SV%), 2000–01 Evgeni Nabokov (66GP, 32-21-7, 6SO, 2.19GAA, .915SV%) and 2003–04 Andrew Raycroft (57GP, 29-18-9, 3SO, 2.15GAA, .924SV%). Mason slumped the next season in Columbus, and he has treaded water as the Blue Jackets dropped out of the playoff race this year. Some of the blowback could have resulted in the Calder loss last season for Jimmy Howard. Howard had numbers comparable to or better than any of the 5 goaltenders who have won the award over the last 19 years. This year rookie goaltenders Corey Crawford and Sergei Bobrovsky deserve to be mentioned in the Calder conversation, but both have an uphill climb to put up comparable numbers to previous winners. There is also the belief among some in the media that goaltenders have their award in the Vezina, won twice by Calder winner Ed Belfour and four times by Calder winner Martin Brodeur (Nabokov was a runner up). Regardless of the merits of that belief, it could siphon off votes and make it more difficult for a goalie to win this year.

The bottom line is that the smaller number of eyeballs regularly watching the San Jose Sharks and Carolina Hurricanes might make for surprise voting results. It was an ominous sign when Don Cherry of Hockey Night in Canada’s Coaches Corner prefaced Logan Couture highlights with the fact that many fans might not have seen him play in San Jose. At times, Couture surpassed Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley as the goto player on the ice. Carolina would usually have more of a visibility argument than all the Californian teams combined, but a masterfully produced and reinvigorated All Star Game in Carolina was a boon for the team and for Skinner. He was named as a late injury replacement to join Team Staal along with teammates Eric Staal and goaltender Cam Ward. Skinner received rock star coverage locally, and as an 18-year old allstar novelty coverage nationally. His name will be familiar to hockey scribes forced to cover the game, and a quick look at the rookie scoreboard could garner him a majority of votes.

Prediction for the 2010-11 Calder Race: Too close to call.