The Calder Trophy won’t end up in the hands of a Montreal Canadiens player this year, but the team has provided many rookies with valuable on-ice lessons in 2022-23.
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Indeed, before Thursday’s games in the National Hockey League (NHL), no less than eight Bleu-Blanc-Rouge players were among the top 50 of the best scorers on the circuit among first-year skaters.
Although he missed several weeks of activities due to an injury suffered at the end of December, defender Kaiden Guhle leads his club in this column with his 17 points, which ranks him 20th in the league. Another guard, Jordan Harris, is 26th among rookies with 15 points, just ahead of teammate Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, who had eight goals and five assists for 13 points in just 24 games.
Then there are Arber Xhekaj (31st), Johnathan Kovacevic (34th) and Justin Barron (35th), three other men playing on the blue line who scored 13, 12 and 11 points in order. First pick in the most recent amateur draft, Juraj Slafkovsky holds the 38th echelon; he had four goals and six assists in 39 outings before having his campaign ruined by a lower-body injury in mid-January. Jesse Ylonen is ahead of the Slovak, in 37th place, with 11 points, including four goals, in 27 duels.
This omnipresence of the Canadian in the ranking of first season scorers, dominated by Matty Beniers (48 points), of the Seattle Kraken, is the complete opposite of the hierarchy of the most productive players in the NHL. The best-placed team representative remains Nick Suzuki, 94th with 51 points in 68 games.