The Calder Trophy: Malkin Elbows Out The Competition

Evgeni Malkin is the odds-on favorite to take home the Calder Trophy Thursday night, but perhaps the voting should be closer than you'd think.

The View From Your Playoff Seat

Your 2007 Calder Cup Champions, the Hamilton Bulldogs.
Sent by that wicked impette, Scarlett Ice.

She adds in her email, "Too soon?"

Grrrrr. A sawbuck that next year's VFYPS album is filled with playoff pics of the Caps (and Hershey alums) taken from our seats in Verizon Center.

It's difficult to believe that the VFYPS project began nearly 2 months ago. We received hundreds of pictures and thousands of visitors, not to mention great support from the hockey (and non-hockey) blogging community. Thank you to everyone who made this project such a success: Jennifer from Southeast Shootout, Hanna, Rebecca aka Caps Chick from A View from the Cheap Seats, Cory, Patrick, Murph from Islanders Army , Sonia, P.J. from Sharkspage, David, Christy from Behind The Jersey, Tapeleg from Jerseys and Hockey Love, Iris, Earl Sleek, jlrpuck, Sherry from Scarlett Ice, Steph from No Pun Intended, Lakshmi from Capital Addiction, Chris from Sens Underground, HockeyGirl from DoubleD(ion), Gustafsson from On Frozen Blog, Greg from the Minnesota Wild, Nick from Deadspin, Mike Chen, J.J. Guerrero from Canucks Hockey Blog, Tom from Sabre Rattling, Kevin from BfloBlog, Alannah and Paul from Kukla's Corner, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Todd from MetaFilter and Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre.

From The Department Of Historical Revision

As the Crosby/Ovechkin debate rages on, one thing that can't be debated is the fact that one of them won the Calder Trophy last year and one didn't. Still, the MSM, apparently dissatisfied with that result, continues to engage in a brand of revisionist history that would make George W. Bush blush (ok, maybe not). Take a gander at this line from NHL.com's Sean Roarke:

Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin, who nipped Crosby for the Calder Trophy last season, will play one of the wings [at this year's All-Star game].

Nipped? Nipped?! AO received 124 of 129 first place votes and totalled 1,275 total voting points to Crosby's 831. In fact, at the time NHL.com said that Ovechkin "ran away with the award."

Seven months later, AO "nipped" Crosby for the trophy. Mission accomplished.

[H/t to Decline the Penalty for the pointer]