Daily Faceoff Live: How many rookie goalies will get Calder Trophy votes?
On today’s Ask DFO segment, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli looked at the Calder Trophy race, specifically the amount of goalies that seem to be in the conversation this year.
Tyler Yaremchuk: “If you had to fill out a Calder ballot right now, who’d be on it?”
Frank Seravalli: “I’d have a hard time. Matty Beniers had had such an impact, but I’d really think about Logan Thompson from the Vegas Golden Knights.
What he’s done this year, he’s still Calder eligible, I know that he got some action last year and was pretty good, but think about the big storyline heading into the season that hasn’t been talked about really much at all for the Vegas Golden Knights as an issue is their goaltending. We were all saying ‘Is that goaltending going to be enough to compete, can’t believe you’re hanging your hat on Logan Thompson?’
I think anyone that has said that is eating a fine dish of crow right now, and for that reason, as good as Beniers has been, as much of an impact as he’s been at helping turn Seattle around, I would still say for me Logan Thompson is the guy, and it’s been a while since we’ve had a Calder-winning goalie.”
Tyler Yaremchuk: “Yeah, this year I think there’s a couple other interesting candidates as well. You mentioned Beniers, obviously 27 points in 36 games, impressive. But there’s actually been three rookie goalies this year who have already played more than 15 games: Logan Thompson, Stuart Skinner in Edmonton, and Pyotr Kochetkov as well in Carolina, who’s rocking a .924 save percentage as a rookie goalie.
I legitimately think by the end of the year maybe one of those goalie could fall off a bit, but it will likely Beniers and two goalies on a lot of ballots, don’t you think?”
Frank Seravalli: “Yeah honestly, as you’re saying and I’m filling out my top five in my head, right now my ballot would look something like 1. Thompson, 2. Beniers, 3. Kochetkov, 4. Skinner, and maybe 5. Matias Maccelli or someone else.”
You can watch the full episode here…