Will Butcher New Jersey Devils’ Best Chance At Calder Trophy
By Nick Villano
Coming into the season, Nico Hischier was one of the favorites for the Calder Trophy, naming the NHL’s rookie of the year. Now, Will Butcher is the New Jersey Devils best chance to have a player win the award.
Nico Hischier has been good for the New Jersey Devils this season. He’s been doing everything decently, something most rookies can’t do. He’s pushed play on the power play, played great on both sides of the puck and has been positioning himself well on the ice. None of these things will get you votes for awards seasons.
The issue with Hischier is he isn’t scoring. While he could end up being the best rookie to come out this season when you look at an all-around game, he won’t be called the “rookie of the year” if this keeps up. He has eight points in 12 games. That’s on pace for 54 points at the end of the season. If you talked to a Devils fan before the season, everyone would have signed up for that. In fact, that would have been the team lead on last year’s Devils.
There are two issues with Hischier’s claim to the Calder Trophy. One, fellow rookie Jesper Bratt has been better on his own team. Two, Clayton Keller has been ridiculous. Keller scored his 10th goal of the season Saturday night. He’s the fifth player in the entire league to do that as of this writing. Again, Keller has been ridiculous.
Therefore, the Devils hopes of winning the Calder Trophy lies in soft hands of Will Butcher.
Butcher has been insane to start this year. After signing with the Devils as a college free agent, his game transitioned easily to the NHL game. His ability to lead the top-five power play in the NHL gives him even more props. The biggest thing he did was make a terrible defense survivable. He is the only playing with significant time that wasn’t on this team last year (although Steve Santini’s emergence definitely helped). Yet, this Devils defense is much better. Are there times where it’s still bad? Yes, but most of the time he’s on the bench for that.
Head coach John Hynes has kept him on the bench for many defensive zone starts. He has a 65% offensive zone start. That may hurt him in the long run, but it isn’t the be all end all.
Butcher is second on the Devils, the fourth best scoring team in the league, in points. This, despite zero goals. He has 12 assists on the season, seven of them coming on the power play. He’s second to Keller among rookies in points. That means Butcher has more points than any rookie outside someone on a torrid pace with two more games than him.
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Also, Butcher being a defenseman putting up these kinds of numbers only helps. His shot from the point is creating offense that other teams wish they could. This is a Brett Burns level effect on the offense.
If the voting was today, Keller would probably win the Calder Trophy. There would be legitimate arguments made for Butcher, however. There’s no doubt he’s at worse second.