Calder Watch: October Recap

In a season that some are speculating may have the most talented crop of rookies the League has ever seen, and with a big dog in the fight for the Calder Trophy, The Rink will keep monthly tabs on the front runners for the coveted award. For now, though, this post is just a front for the "Ovechkin is better than Crosby" argument.

Sure Henrik Lunqvist, Jason LaBarbera and Ryan Miller are off to great starts. Ditto Dion Phaneuf and Fedor Tyutin. But maybe we'll take a look at goaltenders and d-men next month, when hot streaks have ended and the grind of the season has worn players down a bit. For now, though, let's look at the last two #1 overall picks and what they've been able to accomplish through 11 games (and nearly identical ice time per game):

• Team wins: Ovechkin 4, Crosby 1 (the point of the game, after all, is to win)
• Game winning goals: Ovechkin 1, Crosby 0
• Points*: Crosby 14, Ovechkin 13
• Goals: Ovechkin 8, Crosby 2 (8-2? Yes, 8-2, including a 5-1 edge in even strength goals and a 1-0 edge in shorthanded goals)
• Assists*: Crosby 12, Ovechkin 5 (it doesn't hurt playing with four 300-goal scorers, does it, Sid? By contrast, the Capitals don't have three 100-goal scorers)
• Plus-Minus: Ovechkin +1, Crosby -3 (the Caps as a team also have a worse goal differential than Pittsburgh)
• Hits: Ovechkin 24 (first among rookie forwards), Crosby 8
• Shootout goals/attempts: Ovechkin 1/1, Crosby 0/1
• Other notes: Crosby is dead last among rookies in faceoff percentage at 32%
  

Are there any important stats that we're missing on either side of the argument? Or, put another way, is there any way to look at the Calder race thus far and not see El Ocho ahead of Sid the Kid? And yet at least one (not surprisingly Canadian) news outlet still has Crosby leading the pack. It seems that if AO outscores Crosby, that won't be enough. If he plays better defense and leads his team to more wins, that won't be enough. One wonders what Sasha is going to have to do to win the hearts and minds of Canadian journalists.

* If you subtract from each player's total the number of secondary assists, Crosby has 9 assists and Ovechkin has 3, evening the players' point totals at 11. Why do this? Because rarely is a secondary assist as directly critical to a goal as the primary assist or the goal itself and thus, should be counted separately. But that's another post altogether.