{"id":886854,"date":"2026-09-07T15:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/886854\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T15:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T15:06:11","slug":"way-too-early-2026-27-calder-trophy-rankings-for-nhl-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/886854\/","title":{"rendered":"Way-Too-Early 2026-27 Calder Trophy Rankings for NHL Rookie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">Winning the Calder Trophy as a defenseman is an uphill battle, but it can be done. Just ask last year&#8217;s winner, Matthew Schaefer or Lane Hutson. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">However, Cole Hutson is not his brother, Lane, and this season&#8217;s Washington Capitals are not the 2024-25 Montreal Canadiens. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">Without question, Cole Hutson has the talent necessary to win the Calder in a vacuum. He&#8217;s extremely talented, with excellent vision, deception and puck-distribution skills. He&#8217;s clearly capable of translating the offense he brought to teams at lower levels of hockey to the NHL. Unfortunately for the 20-year-old, the season isn&#8217;t played in a vacuum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">He&#8217;s got a lot stacked against him in this Calder race: the players he&#8217;s up against, the structure of the Washington Capitals roster that defines his opportunities, and the aforementioned fact that defensemen generally have a harder time standing out in the ways needed to win. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">John Carlson leaving the Capitals could create special teams opportunities for Hutson, which could open the Calder door a bit further. Watch this space\u2014he could emerge as a dark-horse option. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winning the Calder Trophy as a defenseman is an uphill battle, but it can be done. Just ask&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-886854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}