There is an ever-present concern of placing lofty expectations on young players in today’s NHL. For every Auston Matthews there is a Nolan Patrick; for every Elias Pettersson, a Casey Mittelstadt. Five games may not be a particularly large sample size, but the performances of Quinn Hughes in his first steps in the NHL with the Vancouver Canucks have us all hoping for a second-successive Calder win next season.
Of course, that assumes that overwhelming favourite Pettersson does indeed win this season’s Calder Trophy – his only other serious challenger, Jordan Binnington, will surely not provide a serious challenge in the scoring due to two factors: lack of games played (just 32), and age (Binnington is 25).