I had mixed emotions who to vote for, being a die hard Leafs fan, and all. At one point 3/4 in, I had Laine ahead of Matthews, but Matthews had a very strong finish, got to 40 goals, and just was so impressive helping his team get into the playoffs. Laine, disappeared down the stretch, and in my honest opinion, lost the Calder the last few weeks of the year. Had he kept up his torrid pace the last 10-15 games, I would have gave it to him by the slightest of margins.
Werenski had a fantastic year, and will be one heck of a player for Columbus for many years to come. In all honesty, he really is, and will be very close to both Laine, and Matthews in voting, IMO. Still up for grabs, but putting aside offensive numbers for a second, what other stuff Matthews provided his team this year was over the top. He played in key situations, took dozens, upon dozens of key faceoffs, and his puck pursuit is the best I've seen from anyone in a long time. It's like he has it on a string, and I didn't look up the stats, but he must be up there with the league leaders in takeaways? He also made countless defensive plays that set him apart from being just an offensive minded type player. I did see practically every minute, of every Leaf game, so I know what he did for the entire year, and yes there were times where he wasn't good, and somewhat invisible on the score sheet, but he did all the little things right during those spans, and earned every minute of his ice time.
I wish I saw more games that Werenski, and Laine played, so I could be a little more judgemental, but from the handful I did see of them, they were both very good, but I wasn't blown away. I did see a great display against Toronto one game that Laine had a hat trick, but in all honesty, he did absolutely nothing at all else the entire game, and other than the 3 goals he scored, which by the way is a remarkable feat, especially for a rookie. In fact I thought he was invisable other than the tallies he put up that night.
What's difficult to ignore, is how impressive Werenski was this year, especially being a defenseman, who let's face it often taken many more years to mature into a bonified NHL caliber player, but not this kid. This is why I think the voting will be incredibly close between all 3.
Again, as a Leafs fan, I am pulling for AM34 to win, but if he doesn't, I won't be upset, and can totally understand why one of the others did win it.
