He deserves to win the Calder Trophy
The race to crown a 2019-20 Calder Trophy winner has been more or less of a two-horse sprint to the finish line. Pitting two of the NHL’s top-talented young blueliners against one another, either the Colorado Avalanche’s Cale Makar or the Canucks’ very own, Hughes will win the award.
Both rookie skaters played big minutes for their clubs this season and both players finished the year placed first and second in rookie scoring respectively. The shortened campaign resulted in Hughes (53) finishing with three more points than Makar (50), but he played 11 more games.
#Canucks defender, Quinn Hughes finished the regular season first amongst all rookies in points scored. pic.twitter.com/i0Bmxe60wo
— Brayden Ursel (@bkursel23) June 14, 2020
Don’t get me wrong, both players are offensive juggernauts, but that’s not even the best part. Each of them was able to flip the script and change the narrative for their home team in a positive way, speeding up their overall team development. Makar solidified Colorado as a powerhouse in the Central Division, and Hughes catapulted Vancouver into a play-in series versus the Wild. Hughes and Makar were 100% game-changers for their clubs and will continue to be for a long, long time.
Hughes plays a complete control game with the puck, but away from it, he’s nearly the perfect defender positionally. He’s an incredible split-decision maker and he can shut down the league’s best players in the blink of an eye. He never coughs up the puck, and he’s second to nobody when it comes to getting the puck out of the defensive zone and skating with it up the ice.
Arguably, Hughes would be a shoo-in for the award in any other season, but a lot like the rookie season of Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby of 2005-06, there can only be one crowned winner. Both superstars deserve the award, but in my opinion, it should be Hughes that edges Makar for the honors when all is said and done.
His points per game production may have been slightly lower than Makar, but Hughes moved the needle in a positive direction while staying healthy and remaining a key factor to the team’s fight for a playoff berth. Believe it or not, but that goes a long way in voting.
He was the only player of the two to make the All-Star Game and to top it all off, since the beginning of 2020 he’s scored more points than any other defender in the National Hockey League. That’s not just outscoring another rookie, that’s being the very best. Simply incredible.