The best rookie in the NHL last season will finally be revealed Thursday at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas. And the rookie who was snubbed for that award, the Calder Trophy, will also be known.
That’s the reality of a two-player race between Wild defenseman Brock Faber and Chicago center Connor Bedard. Their merits were comparable in-season, still are and probably always will be.
Bedard is the odds-on favorite to be crowned rookie of the year and if he prevails, he’ll be the 11th player to go from being drafted first overall to winning the Calder Trophy the ensuing season.
But pedigree isn’t all Bedard has going for him.
As an 18-year-old, the center led NHL rookies in scoring with 61 points.
His 22 goals were also tops, and his 39 assists tied with Faber for first. Bedard also had the most assists and points on the Blackhawks and tied for the team lead in goals.
Chicago didn’t climb the standings after his arrival; the Blackhawks missed out on the playoffs and will select second during the first round of the draft on Friday night. But Bedard also missed almost six weeks — or 14 games — because of a fractured jaw.
Cue Faber.
While Bedard was on the mend during the second half, Faber’s candidacy skyrocketed. The Maple Grove native and former Gopher had been playing for the Wild since the beginning of the season, but his impact stole the rookie spotlight while Bedard was idle.
How could it not? Faber was stabilizing a Wild defense that had been ravaged by injury and blossoming on offense.
Aside from matching Bedard in assists, Faber tied for second in rookie scoring with New Jersey’s Luke Hughes (the other finalist for the award) with 47 points. A third of Faber’s production came on the power play, a responsibility he added in-season despite no previous experience quarterbacking a power play.
But perhaps the most compelling part of Faber’s case is his workload.
While appearing in all 82 games, he averaged the sixth-highest ice time (24 minutes, 58 seconds) among all NHLers and logged 2,047:53 overall; that’s nearly 300 more minutes than the next-closest rookie and the most action by a rookie since the statistic was first tracked in 1997.
His career-high 33:25 played Dec. 21 vs. Montreal ranked first in the NHL last season and is the third-highest for a rookie since 2000-01.
In five games he skated at least 30 minutes.
“He exceeded expectations, and I think part of that, too, was opportunity,” said Wild director of amateur scouting Judd Brackett, who didn’t draft Faber but was part of the Wild brain trust when the team traded Kevin Fiala to Los Angeles to acquire Faber two years ago. Faber was drafted in the second round at No. 45 by the Kings in 2020.
He was thrust into a big role,” Brackett continued. “Our captain [Jared Spurgeon] went down [with injury]. We knew that Brock had the skating, the hockey sense, and certainly the character experience coming in having played with the national team, played at the Olympics and with the Gophers.
“So, we knew he was a really experienced player coming in, but [he] took on roles we probably didn’t envision with success. You can’t take away the minutes he played against the players he did; it was incredible. We’re very fortunate, and obviously, he’ll continue to grow.”
If he wins, Faber would be the Wild’s second Calder Trophy recipient.
Kirill Kaprizov was a near-unanimous selection in 2021: he received 99 of 100 first-place votes from the Professional Hockey Writers Association, which decides the award.
Faber will attend the awards show in Las Vegas but even if he doesn’t edge out Bedard, this could still be a momentous summer for the 21-year-old.
He’s eligible to sign an extension starting Monday, and his next contract that will undoubtedly indicate how impressive he was as a rookie — regardless of whether he has the hardware to match.
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