Jeremy Swayman – Boston Bruins Goaltender
Age: 23
Save Percentage: .929
Goals Against Average: 1.95
Record: 13-7-3
Shutouts: 3
Draft: 4th Round (111th Overall) in 2017
In all honesty, if I was voting, my top Calder trophy vote would go to Jeremy Swayman. Not only is he dominating rookie goaltending stats, he’s leading the NHL in goals against average and has the the fourth best save percentage among qualified goalies in the league.
However, this list reflects the odds of winning the Calder and not necessarily my personal opinion of who is more deserving. It’s very rare that a goaltender wins the Calder trophy. The last goaltender to win was Steve Mason in 2009.
Swayman has been splitting games in a tandem with Linus Ullmark, and though Ullmark has played more games, Swayman has been outplaying him and has been getting more starts recently as a result.
Since 1995, only three goaltenders have won the Calder, and they’ve all played around 60 games: Steve Mason (61 games in 2008-09), Andrew Raycroft (57 games in 2003-04), and Evgeni Nabokov (66 games in 2000-01).
Even if Jeremy Swayman played in all of the remaining games for the Boston Bruins, he’d only play in 51 total games. It probably won’t be enough.
The next best rookie goaltenders this season is Alex Nedeljkovic (Detroit Red Wings). Though his 3.13 goals against average and .903 save percentage aren’t great, he does lead rookie goaltenders with 38 games played.
Nedeljkovic was named to last season’s NHL All-Rookie Team, and if he were to be named again this season, he would join Jamie Storr (1998 & 1999) and Jake Allen (2013 & 2015) as the only players to be named to two NHL All-Rookie Teams – all goalies.
Jeremy Swayman was the NHL Rookie of the Month for February 2022.