Ekblad having a Calder-calibre season

Travis Yost

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The final few weeks of the 2014-2015 NHL season haven’t provided much clarity on the Calder Trophy front. There are entirely reasonable arguments to be made for three forwards – Johnny Gaudreu in Calgary, Filip Forsberg in Nashville, and Mark Stone in Ottawa. Through Wednesday night’s games, the trio is tied with 61 points. Yes, it’s that close.

Though I think any of the above names are worthy of award inscription, I’ve recently been championing the idea of giving the Rookie of the Year award to Florida’s Aaron Ekblad. While recognizing that this award is historically reserved for forwards, it’s not as if a defenseman winning is entirely unheard of – Brian Leetch, Barret Jackman, Bryan Berard, and Tyler Myers have all won in the past 25 years.

I concede that it takes a really special season to win this as a blueliner, but Aaron Ekblad’s case is pretty sound. Consider, first, that Aaron Ekblad played his rookie season as an 18-year-old defenseman. In the “Stats Era” (2007-Present), we have only seen eight 18-year-old defensemen log a full season. Even if you expand the criteria to include 19-year-olds, we are talking about 29 total players over eight seasons. Over those same eight seasons, 58 forwards completed a full season. 

On the topic, hockey people are pretty agreeable in the sentiment that it’s easier to hide a young forward, less so for a young defenseman. That’s often why teams are more patient in bringing their young back-end pieces along, reserving those early developmental years for the lower levels.

In Ekblad’s case, he was thrown directly into the fire and, by all accounts, he’s done an admirable job. But, people struggle with comparing his candidacy to the candidacy of the trio above-referenced forwards, and understandably so – they play different positions, and gauging superiority of impact is really difficult.

What I think can offer interesting insight is comparing Ekblad’s 18-year-old season to some of the other 18-year-old seasons we have seen over the last eight years. As you might expect, this list includes a bunch of impressive names – Seth Jones, Drew Doughty, Victor Hedman, and Cam Fowler headline the list, with Adam Larsson, Luke Schenn, and Dmitry Kulikov bringing up the rear. 

First, let’s get the basics – points and ice-time, both at 5-on-5. How does Ekblad compare to some of these other names?

So, the basics obviously speak well to Ekblad against the handful of other guys who have made it through their 18-year-old season. But, we need something to get a better feel for the kind of impact they had in both zones, and the impact they had on their teams.To that extent, we can pull out some on-ice numbers that are team relative. This can include Relative Corsi%, Relative Scoring Chance%, and Relative Goal%. In theory, we want to see that the team is better with the player on the ice than they are with the player off of the ice. The ideal situation would be that the team sees a better share of shots, scoring chances, and goals with the player on the ice.

How does Ekblad fare here?

Much like the raw individual counting numbers like points and ice-time, Ekblad’s lapping the field here, too. Through this season, his team’s been about 4-points better on the possession front, 6-points better on the scoring chance front, and 12-points better on the goal front. The only player who sits in his vicinity is Victor Hedman, who was (and is) pretty damn good.

Maybe you are curious though – maybe you want to see some of the names from the 19-year-old group, guys who made their rookie debut a year later (including former Calder Trophy winner Tyler Myers). Let’s repeat the exercise, and this time only compare him to the best of the best from the 19-year-olds (I’ve already sifted through to isolate for the best seven on both fronts).

Myers and Lindholm out-scored Ekblad in their 19-year-old rookie years, but that’s it. And no player, still, logged more ice-time than Aaron Ekblad from our group of talented rookies.

Now, let’s look at those on-ice numbers again. We’ll put Ekblad next to seven of the best teenage rookie seasons we can come up with. Where does he sit?

Only one teenage defenseman posted a better Relative Corsi% than Aaron Ekblad, and that was Erik Johnson. And, no defenseman managed to beat Aaron Ekblad on the scoring chance or goal front. Most interestingly, Aaron Ekblad’s numbers just blow away that of Tyler Myers, who won the Calder Trophy in 2009-2010.

In summation: No teenage defenseman has really had a better yean Aaron Ekblad has in the past decade or so, including a former Calder Trophy winner. He’s logged a punishing amount of minutes, he’s contributed offensively, his team is always better with him on the ice, and he didn’t get even a second of preparation time at a lower level to craft his game against adults.

He deserves the Calder Trophy.