Guess which Ranger is in the Calder Trophy conversation (it’s not Kaapo Kakko)

With half the season to go, New York Rangers defenseman Adam Fox has become a  factor in the race for the Calder Trophy.  Slowly but surely, he’s made up a lot of ground on his competition and now he’s got a real chance.

A Calder Trophy race that was a given in November is now a dogfight between at least a half dozen legitimate candidates.  Adam Fox of the New York Rangers is making a case for being one of the favorites.

Fox has six goals and 26 points, good for sixth place overall among rookies and third among rookie blueliners.  His 20 assists rank third among NHL freshmen.  He quietly has risen near the top in every offensive category among rookies.  He did this despite averaging 17:56 minutes per game, seventh most among rookie defensemen.

One month into the season, the entire hockey world was awarding Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar the Calder Trophy.   He had scored eight goals and had 18 assists for 26 points by the end of November.   Then, he missed almost three weeks with an upper body injury and has one goal and five assists since the beginning of December.  Makar is second overall in rookie scoring with nine goals and 33 points.

Meanwhile, Quinn Hughes of Vancouver has been a consistent contributor on defense and has almost caught up to Makar in the points race with 32. Hughes is a force on the power play and leads all rookie scorers with 17 points with the man advantage.

As for forwards, Victor Olofsson of Buffalo has fought off a slump and sits atop the scoring race with 35 points.  What’s impressive about Olofsson is while he made his name with six power play goals in  his first seven games, he has balanced his scoring and seven of his last 10 goals have been at even strength.

Some late entrants into the Calder conversation include Nick Suzuki of Montreal, Martin Necas or Carolina and John Marino of Pittsburgh.  Everyone’s new favorite is Dominik Kubalik of the Blackhawks who has been on a tear recently.  Wednesday night he had a six-game goal scoring streak stopped, a span in which he scored 10 of his 18 goals this season.

How Fox compares

Adam Fox got off to a very slow start.  After 10 games, he had not scored a goal and had all of one assist and was playing around 15 minutes per game.  In the 35 games since, he has notched six goals and 19 assists for 25 points.  That’s a .71 points per game pace and that would put him third in the league behind Makar and Olofsson.  Including all of his games he is scoring at a .58 points per game pace, eighth best among rookies.

Fox’s numbers on the power play are pretty solid.  He is fourth among rookies with 11 power play points.  Quinn Hughes leads with 17, but he is on the ice for 66.2% of Vancouver’s power play time.  Olofsson is tied for second with Makar with 14 points, but he has been on for 64.3% of Buffalo’s PP time.  Makar has been on for 60,3% of Colorado’s PP time.

Compare that to Fox who has 11 points, but sees action on the second power play unit and plays 39.9% of the Rangers time with the man advantage.

Also impressive is Fox’s plus/minus rating of plus nine. That is better than all of  his Calder competitors with Makar the closest at plus four.  Quinn Hughes is an ugly minus nine.