As the NHL has been slowly releasing the nominees for its various regular season awards over the last few days, some trophies have garnered significant interest.

There wasn’t a widely held opinion, for instance, regarding which three defencemen would be up for the Norris Trophy. Nor is there any real consensus about the league’s biggest award, the Hart Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player.

That wasn’t necessarily the case for the Calder Trophy, which goes to the NHL’s best rookie. The award, the only one in which a Vancouver Canuck had any ostensible chance, hasn’t been much of a mystery for months.

Canucks sniper Brock Boeser, along with New York Islanders centre Mathew Barzal and Arizona Coyotes winger Clayton Keller are up for the Calder this year, and each had terrific seasons.

And though the race was extremely tight, particularly between Boeser and Barzal, the latter started pulling away even before the former was injured. At this point, it’s a virtual guarantee that Barzal is crowned the best rookie, a fact many Canucks fans will mourn.

Is there a case for Boeser?

Oh, definitely. He had 29 goals and 55 points in 62 games on a Vancouver team that struggled to score. When Boeser went down it signaled a terrible stretch for the Canucks as the rookie provided much of the team’s scoring prowess. He was also leading rookies in goals at the time of his injury (he was eventually passed by Kyle Connor of the Winnipeg Jets who played 14 more games and scored two more goals).

As for Barzal, his 85 points in 82 games easily paced the rest of the NHL’s newcomers, and would likely have topped Boeser’s total even if he didn’t get hurt.

But it must be said that Barzal played the entirety of his season behind John Tavares in the lineup, facing easier competition on a team that was seventh in the league in goals. He also had veteran scorer Jordan Eberle as his winger.

Meanwhile, Boeser played other teams’ best defenders and was game planned against, something teams didn’t have the luxury to do against Barzal. The Canucks were tied for fourth-last in the league in goals scored, and after Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi got injured for stretches, the rookier often found himself playing alongside Thomas Vanek and Sam Gagner.

Barzal will win the Calder, and because of the way things transpired this year, he deserves to. Injuries are unfortunate, and this one may have cost Boeser his first chance at NHL hardware. But one has to think there’s more on the way.

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