Mailbag: Calder Trophy favorite, Rangers can make deep playoff run

Here is the April 20 edition of the mailbag, where we answer your questions asked on Twitter using #OvertheBoards. Tweet your questions to @drosennhl.

Does Moritz Seider have the Calder Trophy in the bag, or do you think it's still up for debate? -- @jonny_pence
Seider, the 21-year-old defenseman for the Red Wings, is the favorite for the Calder Trophy given to the rookie of the year in the NHL, but it's not in the bag. He's being pushed by Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman and Nashville Predators forward Tanner Jeannot. I would expect Detroit forward Lucas Raymond, Toronto Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting, Anaheim Ducks forward Trevor Zegras and Florida Panthers forward Anton Lundell to get votes too. Minnesota Wild forward Matt Boldy would get more votes if he played more games (41).
If I had to pick my top three right now it would be Seider, Jeannot and Swayman in that order.
Seider is obvious. He's a young defenseman playing more than 23 minutes a game (23:05), producing offensively (48 points in 77 games) and playing strong defensively. He's been asked to be a No. 1 defenseman on an NHL team and is handling it well.

Jeannot leads all rookies with 24 goals and is tied for sixth in points (41), but he's not done enough to steal votes from Seider. He's sixth on the Predators in scoring and plays less than 16 minutes a game (15:56), but the 24-year-old is an impressive power forward.
Swayman has been the best rookie goalie, but he gets knocked down a peg in the Calder vote because of games played, which in most cases I don't think is fair to a goalie but it comes into play here. He has split time almost evenly with Linus Ullmark, each with 38 games and 36 starts. If Swayman had 45-50 starts he would get my vote if I had one but given that he's not a true No. 1 goalie, it's hard to give him a major NHL award.
The last time this young New York Rangers team even sniffed the playoffs they got outclassed by a veteran Carolina team in the bubble. Now they once again have a potential Vezina Trophy-winning goalie and are proving doubters wrong at every turn. Just how far can they go? -- @MikeBolino
The Rangers can make a deep run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs if goalie Igor Shesterkin plays the way he has throughout the regular season. Shesterkin has offered no reason to believe he won't, but his NHL playoff experience is limited to Game 3 against the Hurricanes in the 2020 Stanley Cup Qualifiers, a 4-1 loss that ended the best-of-5 series after he allowed three goals on 30 shots. The Rangers, by the way, were not outclassed in that series. They simply lost to an experienced team that understood how to get its game up to a level to win at playoff time. What Shesterkin faces this season will not compare to that one game, which was played without fans at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. His lack of playoff experience is not a concern for the Rangers.
New York has improved defensively since adding forwards Andrew Copp and Frank Vatrano before the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline on March 21, which filled holes in the lineup and slotted players in better spots. Vatrano has been on the top line with center Mika Zibanejad and left wing Chris Kreider. Copp has been on the second line with center Ryan Strome and left wing Artemi Panarin. Barclay Goodrow has been in a bottom-six role, where he should be. Alexis Lafreniere is playing left wing, where he is most comfortable. The depth has improved. The Rangers have had the puck more and Shesterkin and backup goalie Alexandar Georgiev have had it easier, facing 24.3 shots on goal per game compared to the 32.2 they were facing pre-deadline. They have given up fewer goals too, 2.14 since the deadline versus 2.51, and have averaged 3.50 goals per game post deadline after 2.94 before it. Though part of that is the Rangers feasting on inferior competition like the Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, Philadelphia Flyers, Ottawa Senators and New Jersey Devils, they also have three wins against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
New York will run into trouble against teams like Carolina, Tampa Bay Lightning or Boston Bruins because know how to lock it down in playoff hockey, create low-event games. The Rangers don't have that level of experience and know how. They'll have to build it on the fly.
Does Colorado Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic finally win GM of the Year? He fleeced Ottawa and Nashville with the Matt Duchene trade. He got Devon Toews for a bag of pucks. He signed Ben Meyers and great drafting. How has this man not won? Oh, and probably back-to-back Presidents' Trophy winners. What gives? -- @theashcity
Nobody got "fleeced" or traded for a "bag of pucks." The Avalanche made trades they felt were best for them at the time, as did the Ottawa Senators and Nashville Predators in the trade involving Duchene, and New York Islanders in the trade involving Toews. It has worked out for Colorado and certainly is another reason why Sakic is regarded as one of the top general managers in the NHL. But Sakic hasn't won the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award because it's voted on at the conclusion of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Avalanche have not gotten out of the second round since 2002, when Sakic was their captain. The NHL started holding voting for the award after the second round in 2014 and since 2015 every winner's team has reached at least the conference final. Judging by that unofficial criteria, the Avalanche have to get to the Western Conference Final for Sakic to win it this year.
Sakic is a deserving candidate based on what we know so far. He has helped build the Avalanche into a legitimate Stanley Cup contender through drafting, savvy trades and smart signings, the Avalanche acquiring every player except for forward Gabriel Landeskog and defenseman Erik Johnson during his tenure. Sakic's unwavering belief in a rebuild and coach Jared Bednar after Colorado finished last in the NHL with 48 points in 2016-17 should be commended. Moving on from goalie Philipp Grubauer to bring in Darcy Kuemper in the offseason was smart. Kuemper is a pending unrestricted free agent. Grubauer, a Vezina Trophy finalist last season for the best goalie in the NHL, signed a six-year, $35.4 million ($5.9 million average annual value) contract with the Seattle Kraken.
Kuemper could be a Vezina finalist this season. Building Colorado's depth by signing forwards like Valeri Nichushkin and Logan O'Connor has paid dividends. Acquiring defenseman Josh Manson and forward Artturi Lehkonen before the trade deadline has made the Avalanche deeper at both positions, as has finding suitable roles for defenseman Jack Johnson and forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel. They have a lot of star power with forwards Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Landeskog, plus defenseman Cale Makar, but they are where they are now, again challenging for the Presidents' Trophy for the best record in the NHL during the regular season, because they have no holes or weaknesses up and down their lineup.

The New York Islanders catapulted themselves into ninth in the Eastern Conference. They'll miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs but what have they done right to close out the season and is it something we can expect from them next year? -- @phruitloops420
The Islanders started the season with 13 straight road games. They lost their first two in regulation, picked up points in the next seven and were 5-2-2 after nine. Things were going well, but the road weariness early in the season started to find its way onto the ice. They lost their last four of the 13-game stretch by a combined 19-4. The excitement of opening UBS Arena couldn't stop the bleeding. They lost their first five home games (0-4-1) and were 5-10-5 after 20 overall. They weren't scoring (1.90 goals per game), their power-play percentage was 14.3 percent with three shorthanded goals against and they were already 12 points out of a playoff spot.
The Islanders are 30-21-5 since Dec. 7. They're scoring 3.04 goals per game, allowing 2.64, and are 21.7 percent on the power play. They're not blowing anyone away offensively, but they're top five defensively and their goaltending has been solid. If the season started Dec. 7, the Islanders right now would be in position for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference, six points ahead of the Washington Capitals, albeit with five more games played. New York was doomed by a slow, road-drenched start.
That doesn't mean the Islanders are all good now and ready to win next season. They need more speed, an elite goal scorer, to rearrange their depth and move away from the fourth line of Casey Cizikas, Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin that has been so good to get faster throughout their lineup. But how they've played in the last three quarters of the season is a large enough sample size to predict they're not suddenly going in the wrong direction.
Does Auston Matthews play his entire career in Toronto? -- @JamesBerek
I said on an episode of the "NHL @TheRink" podcast last week that Matthews, a 24-year-old center, will not leave the Maple Leafs until he wins the Stanley Cup. The cynics will say that means he will never leave Toronto, a joke on the Maple Leafs not winning the Cup since 1967. But Matthews' mission is to bring it to Toronto, and I don't think he goes anywhere until that mission is complete. Maybe he looks elsewhere at that point, perhaps the Arizona Coyotes. The star from Scottsdale, Arizona coming to play for his hometown team would be a fun story, but Matthews wants to win in Toronto.
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