For a while, it has seemed somewhere between cheeky and silly to suggest that no sooner did the Ottawa Senators trade Erik Karlsson than the next generational gem of a defenceman appeared in their midst in the form of Thomas Chabot.
It’s possible, though, our uprights for this discussion should be shifting to something more like “entirely possible” and “almost certainly.”
Karlsson returned to Ottawa on Saturday and got the video-tribute treatment he deserved. His San Jose Sharks team, however, was just the latest to find out what Chabot has to offer in a 6–2 Ottawa win. The 21-year-old netted two assists in the contest to bring his season-long output to seven goals, 24 assists and 31 points in 27 games. That’s a league-high for defencemen, and it’s the kind of production that merits turning this into a bit of a history lesson.
Right now, Chabot is on pace for 94 points, but even if he manages to finish with 80, he’ll be in outrageously elite company. According to Hockey Reference’s awesome Play Index, the list of blue-liners to post an 80-point year during or before their age-22 season (the date Hockey Reference goes by is Feb. 1 and Chabot turns 22 on Jan. 30) is limited to Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey, Denis Potvin and Brian Leetch.
| Player | Season | Age | GP | G | A | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bobby Orr, BOS | 1970-71 | 22 | 78 | 37 | 102 | 139 |
| Paul Coffey, EDM | 1983-84 | 22 | 80 | 40 | 86 | 126 |
| Bobby Orr, BOS | 1969-70 | 21 | 76 | 33 | 87 | 120 |
| Denis Potvin, NYI | 1975-76 | 22 | 78 | 31 | 67 | 98 |
| Paul Coffey, EDM | 1982-83 | 21 | 80 | 29 | 67 | 96 |
| Paul Coffey, EDM | 1981-82 | 20 | 80 | 29 | 60 | 89 |
| Brian Leetch, NYR | 1990-91 | 22 | 80 | 16 | 72 | 88 |
Only two defencemen — Karlsson (82 in 2015–16) and Nick Lidstrom (80 in 2005–06) — have posted 80-point seasons since the 2004–05 lockout.
To be fair, John Carlson, Morgan Rielly and Brent Burns are all producing at an 80-point clip this year, but Rielly is the only one of the group even remotely close to Chabot’s age, and even he is three years the Ottawa D-man’s senior.
It always seemed crazy that Ottawa was able to draft Karlsson 15th overall in 2008. And not long after it happened, it felt nuts Chabot — the 2017 World Junior Championship MVP — went 18th overall to them in 2015. The most mind-bending aspect of all, though, is that in just his second year in the league, Chabot appears truly capable of picking up where the best version of Karlsson left off.
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More Weekend Takeaways
• Each year, you expect a couple top-of-the-board draftees to have instant success. The 2018 class, however, is on pace to do something we haven’t seen in about a decade. On Friday, Andrei Svechnikov — the second-overall pick this past June — snapped home Carolina’s only goal in a 2–1 overtime loss to the Ducks. The right winger is basically tracking a 40-point season, as is the third-overall pick, centre Jesperi Kotkaniemi of the Canadiens.
The first pick, Rasmus Dahlin, has been smack in the middle of Buffalo’s surge, netting nine points in his past 11 games from the blue line. And left winger Brady Tkachuk of the Senators has 16 points in 16 contest after missing about a month with a leg injury.
Assuming all four of those players spend the entire year in the NHL — and that feels like a really safe bet — it will mark the first time since the 2009–10 campaign that the top four picks from a single draft all make the immediate jump to being full-time NHLers. (That 2009 draft crew, in order of selection, was John Tavares, Victor Hedman, Matt Duchene and Evander Kane.)
• Right before the season began, the Oilers signed Alex Chiasson — who was in training camp on a professional try-out — to a one-year contract and placed Pontus Aberg on waivers. Chiasson has 11 goals in 20 games for the Oilers and Aberg has nine in 23 outings for Anaheim.
• Aberg’s most recent two goals came in the third period of Anaheim’s stunning comeback in Washington on Sunday, as the Ducks clawed out of a 5-1 deficit to win 6–5 in regulation time. Only four players have appeared in every game the injury-hobbled Ducks have played this year; the team’s goal differential is minus-13 and Anaheim’s possession metrics indicate they’ve lost complete control. Still, the Orange County Quackers have won four straight and are just a point back of first-place Calgary in the wide-open Pacific Division.
• John Tortorella recently referred to the NHL as the “Find A Way” league. It has also become a “Don’t Look Away” circuit. In addition to the Ducks erasing a four-goal lead on Sunday, the Jets also blasted back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Rangers 4-3 in a contest decided by shootout at Madison Square Garden. On Saturday, it was Tampa Bay storming back from a 4-1 hole versus Florida to win 5–4 in OT. The NHL has now seen seven instances this season in which a team came back from at least three goals down to claim victory.
• In a vacuum, I was pretty cool with William Nylander’s hair-under-$7 million cap hit. Then I heard Brian Burke dump on the deal because, among other reasons, Nylander is Toronto’s sixth-best player. That gave me a moment of pause, during which I thought, “Maybe he has a point.”
Then something else quickly ran through my head: “The Leafs have FIVE players who are more important to the club than Nylander?!”
Count ’em up: Matthews; Tavares; Marner; Rielly and Andersen. Hey, a Nazem Kadri fan might argue they have six superior players to the Swede. We spend a lot of time talking about how the band will stay together, but sometimes it’s worth zooming out and just appreciating what a collection of high-end talent this team that finished dead last two-and-a-quarter seasons ago has accumulated.
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Red and White Power Rankings
1. Toronto Maple Leafs (19-8-0): Three goals in two games for Auston Matthews since returning from his shoulder injury. He now has 13 in as many contests this year.
2. Winnipeg Jets (16-8-2): Nice couple of extra-time road wins on Saturday and Sunday, but the Jets have not surrendered fewer than three goals in any of their past eight outings. They’ve given up four on three occasions during that stretch and more than five twice.
3. Calgary Flames (16-9-2): Three good starts in a row now for Mike Smith, who seems to be getting things back on the rails.
4. Edmonton Oilers (13-11-2): ‘Comet’ McDavid, everyone.
5. Montreal Canadiens (12-10-5): Shea Weber scored his first two goals of the year in his second game back during a 5–2 win on Saturday over the Rangers. But after losing to San Jose yesterday, the Habs have dropped six of their past seven games.
6. Ottawa Senators (12-12-3): The Sens have won three in a row in advance of a home-and-home set with Montreal — a team they trail by two points — on Tuesday and Thursday.
7. Vancouver Canucks (11-15-3): We (justifiably) hear a lot about Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser, but how about Bo Horvat being almost a point-per-game player (25 in 29) this year?
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In Your Ear
I had the pleasure of heading to Montreal on the weekend to take in the Canadiens’ game versus the Blueshirts on Saturday. As part of the trip, I got to sit down with Sportsnet’s beat man Eric Engels and go deep on the team he covers. Look for our in-depth, big-picture conversation on the Canadiens on Thursday’s episode of Tape to Tape.
Also great about a hockey weekend at the Bell Centre? These toasty delights.
Looking ahead
• Seattle expansion likely becomes an official thing early this week as the NHL Board of Governors meet in yet another place you wish your meetings happened — Sea Island, Ga. Approval requires a ‘yes’ vote from three-quarters of the board and it feels like a Shawn Kemp slam dunk.
• We probably won’t see Nylander for a few games yet, but don’t miss the Leafs’ trip to Buffalo on Tuesday. When is the last time these two clubs met in front of a divided, raucous crowd in Western New York with both teams having designs on the division lead?
