Soph Of The Year?

1) With Wednesday's opinion piece concerning the Calder race, we decided to see who of the excellent 07-08 rookie class was having the best sophomore season. Many times a players' second season sees a reduction in output; The dreaded sophomore jinx. We will run down the top Calder vote getter's and see how they are fairing this season to come up with who we believe is "The Soph of The Year".

2) Last year's Calder Finalists with total votes in parentheses, followed by their 07-08 point/win totals and this year's numbers (to date):

• Patrick Kane- Chicago Black Hawks (1078) 21-51-72/24-41-65



• Nicklas Backstrom- Washington Capitals (872) 14-55-69/22-62-82



• Jonathon Towes- Chicago Black Hawks (647) 24-30-54/31-33-64



• Carey Price-Montreal Canadiens (461) 24-12 2.56, .920/23-14, 2.77, .905



• Peter Mueller- Phoenix Coyotes (195) 22-32-54/12-22-34



• Milan Lucic- Boston Bruins (2) 8-19-27/17-24-41

3) Several things jump out at us here.

• Firstly Milan Lucic has bust upon the scene quite a bit since his rookie season. Developing into one of the brighter, up and coming young power forwards in the game today


• Peter Mueller (like his team) had one of the more disappointing soph seasons of the top Rookies. He even looked poised to possibly be the player to beat last season for a time.


• Nicklas Backstrom, last year's runner up is by far having the best Sophomore season of any of last year's rookie class. Pacing his team in assists and eclipsing the 20 goal plateau recently. As such Backstrom is The Fauxrumors Sophomore of The Year! Sorry Nicky, no accompanying trophy/monetary reward! ; )