The Calder Trophy is Matty Benier's to lose.
As the NHL enters the final two months of its season, the Seattle Kraken rookie forward sits at -185 odds to take home the Calder, which goes to the NHL's most proficient first-year player. In 51 games, Beniers has 17 goals and 19 assists for a total of 36 points. The Kraken are in strong playoff position, with a 92% chance to make the postseason according to MoneyPuck.
So should the award inevitably go to him, you can't say he didn't deserve it.
But here's another name that deserves it: Kirill Marchenko.
Through the first 30 games of his career, the Blue Jackets rookie forward has 14 goals. That's more than Connor McDavid had in his first 30 (13 goals), more than Sidney Crosby (also 13), and is equal to Auston Matthews' total.
To get acclimated to the North American game, the 22-year-old Marchenko started the season in Cleveland with the AHL's monsters. There, he put up eight goals and added 11 assists in just 16 games.
When the call came in early December for Marchenko to join the Blue Jackets, it took just four games and a total of four shots for him to get his first goal. A hat trick January 7th against the Carolina Hurricanes in a 4-3 shootout victory is his best performance to date, but three goals in a four game stretch in December and four goals in a three game stretch in late January are also worth mentioning.
Marchenko also has six power play goals, which leads the team and is three times more than any other Blue Jacket aside from Boone Jenner, who has five.
There's also this: despite playing just 30 games, Marchenko is tied for second on the team with 14 goals. That tie is with Johnny Gaudreau (53 games) and Patrik Laine (38 games), and is just one behind Jenner's 15 (in 42 games) for the team lead.
When it comes to goals per 60 minutes, Marchenko's numbers are even more impressive. He currently sits at 2.03 in that category, which is 78% higher than Laine's 1.14, which ranks second on the team. There are only four players who currently rank higher than 2.03, and none of them by a wide margin: David Pastrnak (2.22), Tage Thompson (2.18), Jack Hughes (2.08), and Connor McDavid (2.06).
That's, in a word, incredible.
Despite the Blue Jackets being the worst team in the league by points, Marchenko's play is getting noticed. His +4000 odds to win the Calder Trophy have him in a tie for 11th, but he's been steadily rising since appearing on the list a few weeks ago. It wouldn't take much — maybe another 3G-in-4GP stretch — for Marchenko to crack the top five.
And deservedly so. Extrapolated to an 82 game season, Marchenko would tally 38 goals as a 22-year-old rookie on a bad team. Included in that would be 16 goals on the power play. These are impressive numbers for anyone, let alone a rookie.
With two months left in the season, Marchenko has the potential to play in nearly 60 games. At this pace, that would put him near 30 goals on the season. Would that be enough to get him invited to the awards?
That question may be answered by the play of other rookies up for the award, such as Cole Perfetti, Mason McTavish, and Owen Power. But at this point, it's hard to not see Marchenko among the top five in votes by season's end.
