Freakishly strong class of Calder candidates

[shortcat1]

I know that we've talked about this in a variety of strings before but here's a more complete overview of potential Calder candidates for this year.

In this article by TSN.ca, Montreal is seen to have two candidates. Of course, there are many others but the inclusion of only one Leafs candidate will possibly belie the Toronto bias of this organization.

To use one of their expressions, "There is also that freakishly strong and deep class... born in 1985."

Interesting read.

Here are their candidates:

Sidney Crosby (who's that?)

Kari Lehtonen (Atlanta)

Ryan Suter (Nashville)

Alexander Ovechkin (Washington)

Thomas Vanek (Buffalo)

Dion Phaneuf (Calgary)

Jeff Carter and Mike Richards (Philadelphia)

Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf (Anaheim)

Brandon Bochenski (Ottawa)

Cam Ward (Carolina)

Rostislav Olesz (Florida)

Rene Bourque (Chicago)

Tomas Plekanec and Chris Higgins (Montreal)

Alex Steen (Toronto)

Maxime Ouellette (Wahington)

Jim Howard (Detroit)

Zach Parise (New Jersey)

Braydon Coburn (Atlanta)

Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith and Cam Barker (Chicago)

Andy Rogers (Tampa Bay)

Wojtek Wolski (Colorado)

Colton Orr (Boston)

Gilbert Brule (Columbus)

Benoit Pouliot (Minnesota)

Guillaume Latendresse (Montreal).

Brent Burns (Minnesota)

I'd like to add the name of Alex Perezhogin to that list

Of course, my sentimental favourites are...

:ghg::hlogo::ghg:

[Edited on 2005/9/29 by shortcat1]

[shortcat1]

Here is RDS.ca's take on the thing.

http://www.rds.ca/hockey/chroniques/188886.html

Here's their suggested candidates. For the most part, they make sense.

Sidney Crosby

Alexander Ovechkin

Thomas Vanek

Ryan Suter

Kari Lehtonen

Brandon Bochenski

Jeff Carter

Dion Phaneuf

Tomas Plekanec

Chris Higgins

Guillaume Latendresse

[~moeman]

Pleks is the dark horse in this race.

[shortcat1]

I'm not surprised to see Latendresse on RDS.ca's list (local boy bias) but to see his name on TSN's list, even at the bottom is quite surprising. I wonder if they see in him the possibility of another Patrice Bergeron, a guy who comes in out of nowhere to make a real impact on the game right out of the draft.

[~moeman]

As much as I'd love to see Latendresse make it this year I would rather he do a stint in Drummondville or Hamilton. He seems ready, he bangs the bod, crashes the net and plays hard every shift (wow when did the last happen?) but 4 other players have worked up through the system and have their due coming. The bonus is Dagenais is on a two-way contract. Julien will not give him slack so Guillaume may sneak in sooner than later. Gainey has some nice cap room and how sweet would it be to see #84 skip into town for some playoffs?!!!