From 135th overall to Calder Trophy winner!

Your Minnesota Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov is the winner of the Calder, given to the NHL’s best rookie! 

Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic and Dallas Stars left wing Jason Robertson were the other finalists for the 2021 Calder Memorial Trophy. 

And it’s hard not to be surprised. The 24-year-old forward led the Wild and NHL rookies with 51 points (27-24=51) in 55 games this season. 

Check out the rest of his impressive season’s stats, per NHL.com: 

“He also led the team and League rookies in goals, even-strength goals (19), power-play goals (8) and shots on goal (157), ranked T-1st in overtime goals (2), second in assists, even-strength points (38) and power-play points (13), T-3rd in plus/minus rating (plus-10) and T-4th in game-winning goals (3). Per NHL Stats, the 5-foot-11, 201-pound forward is one of four rookies since 1992-93 to lead a team in points during the regular season, while helping them qualify for the playoffs: Auston Matthews (2016-17), Filip Forsberg (2014-15) and Trent Hunter (2003-04). He set franchise rookie records for most goals, PPG, EVG, OTG, assists, points, EVP and multi-point games (13). The left-shot winger also set franchise rookie records with a three PPP night (2-1=3) April 7 vs. COL, a six-game point streak (5-5=10) from April 29-May 8, a four-game multi-point game streak from May 3-8 and a five-game goal streak (6g) from April 17-24. The native of Novokuznetsk, Russia began the season with three points (2-1=3) in his NHL debut at LA on Jan. 14 to become the third player in NHL history to score an OT goal in his debut while his three points were the most by a Wild player in his debut. He netted his first career hat trick on March 12 vs. ARI to become the second Wild rookie to do so (Justin Fontaine, 1/9/14) and the third Wild player to score all three goals in the same period (Zach Parise, 3/24/16 in the first & Jason Zucker, 11/9/17 in the third).” 

This is impressive knowing that the Russian forward was selected by the Wild in the fifth round (135th overall) of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. Since 1970, he becomes the 10th Calder Memorial Trophy winner to be drafted in the fifth round or later of the NHL Entry Draft. 

Before coming to the NHL, Kaprizov continued to play in the KHL and last season scored 33 goals and had 62 points in 57 games last year. Some fans claimed that it was unfair for the other rookies that a player who was over a point-per-game in the second-best league in the world is in contention for the NHL Calder trophy, but he surely deserves it. 

Now, the focus shifts on the hope that the Wild and general manager Bill Guerin will manage to re-sign him for the future in Minnesota.