Dark horse emerges in Calder Trophy race
When it comes to ranking the candidates for the Calder Trophy race, the field is as wide open as it is diverse. There’s a 24-yearold winger, a couple of offensive-minded defencemen, and a goalie who began the season as the backup for the best team in the NHL.
Buffalo’s Victor Olofsson leads all rookies with 35 points, while Colorado’s Cale Makar and Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes lead rookie defencemen with 34 and 33 points, respectively. Meanwhile, Washington’s Ilya Samsonov has a 14-2-1 record and a league-best 2.10 goals-against average.
It’s an apples-to-oranges-topears type of comparison that’s about to become more complicated with the recent arrival of Chicago’s Dominik Kubalik.
The Chicago Blackhawks winger leads all rookies with 18 goals. Seven of them have come in January, which makes sense for a 24-year-old who has been a late bloomer in every sense of the word.
A seventh-round pick of the
Los Angeles Kings in 2013, Kubalik went unsigned by the Kings, spending two years in the Czech Republic and another two years in Switzerland before the Blackhawks signed him to a one-year contract this season.
At this point last year, he didn’t think competing for the Calder Trophy was possible. He wasn’t even sure playing in the NHL was realistic.
“I was thinking I was going to have a career in Europe. That was the mindset,” said Kubalik. “I restarted my career.”
That he’s restarted it in Chicago makes sense. The Blackhawks, who previously rescued Artemi Panarin from Russia and Dominik Kahun from Germany, have a track record of giving forgotten players a new lease on life.
Panarin, who is now playing for the New York Rangers, won a Calder Trophy in 2016. Kahun, who is now playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, scored 37 points last season as a rookie.
“That was actually a reason why I signed,” said Kubalik. “I wanted to give North America a try, and when I heard Chicago wanted me, I knew Panarin and Kahun had been given a shot. So I knew it might be a good chance.”
The NHL has transformed into a young man’s league, with more and more first-rounders able to bypass the minors and jump straight from the draft floor to playing and contributing on a top line. But it hasn’t worked out that way this year. Jack Hughes, Kaapo Kakko and Kirby Dach, the top three picks in 2019, have combined for just one more goal than Kubalik has scored.
That’s not a knock on Hughes or Kaapo or Dach. It’s just a recognition that not every top prospect develops as quickly as Connor Mcdavid or Auston Matthews.
Kubalik certainly needed time, as did Olofsson and Toronto’s Pierre Engvall, two more seventh-round picks who spent four years in Sweden and another season in the American Hockey League before making the jump to the NHL.
“Pretty good seventh rounders, right?” said Kubalik. “It’s weird.”
What’s even stranger is that Los Angeles gave up on a player who’s ability as a sniper has earned him a spot on Jonathan Toews’ wing and helped Chicago stay in the playoff hunt.
“I think there are a lot of great players in the league who can shoot the puck nowadays, but he just seems to have a nose for anticipating when myself, or whoever else on our line, has the puck in the open area and is going to find him,” said Toews. “He’s always ready to catch and shoot.”
For a Chicago team with a championship core that’s getting older, Kubalik’s ability to find the back of the net is essential if they’re going to bridge the gap and avoid the inevitable rebuild that Los Angeles couldn’t avoid.
The team is still led offensively by Toews and Patrick Kane, who is on pace for another 100-point season. But whether or not they make the playoffs will depend on how players like Kubalik, Dach, Alex Debrincat, Dylan Strome, Alex Nylander and Adam Boqvist perform.
“We have eight or nine guys on entry-level contracts who are contributing,” said head coach Jeremy Colliton. “They’re not just passengers.”
As for Kubalik, winning the Calder Trophy would certainly help. For that to happen, he’ll have to prove he can continue his torrid scoring pace into the second half of the season.
Then again, don’t mention individual awards to him just yet. He’s more concerned with making sure this season is no fluke.