There will be no Calder Trophy for William Nylander, no real debate or discussion, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that in this season of professional growth and discovery.

As stunning and composed as Auston Matthews has been, as remarkably as Mitch Marner has played, Nylander has found his place rather distinctively and surprisingly, nestled behind Toronto’s Top 2, as the best rookie nobody talks much about in this year of the great rookie race.

We weren’t certain what Matthews would be in his first NHL season because we hadn’t really seen him before.

We weren’t certain how much Marner could dance, and how Mike Babcock would deal with his swagger, having never played in the NHL or for the coach before.

But we saw Nylander last year. We saw him with the Marlies. We saw him in the playoffs. And just like Leafs management, we weren’t sure about him. We know he’s talented, I was told at the end of the Marlies season. “What we don’t know is how passionate he is. Does he love the game? I mean, really love the game. We’re going to find that out.”

Nylander is five points behind Matthews in rookie scoring, eight points behind Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine, four behind Marner and leading all first-year players in power play points, which has been extraordinarily meaningful for the surprising Leafs.

Statistically, Toronto has the second best power play in the NHL. That’s up from 29th a year ago. Last year, 15.4% success with the man advantage; this year, 23.7%. Nylander, who has demonstrated considerable vision and creativity along with a goal-scorer’s wrist shot with a super quick delivery, would have been a Calder contender in other years, when Jonathan Huberdeau or Gabriel Landeskog were winning, when the class wasn’t stacked as this one happens to be.

Nylander is just learning what he can be: The doubts about him are rapidly disappearing.

There will be no Calder Trophy for Connor Brown. But in another year, on another team maybe, there might be more understanding and appreciation of the value of hockey intelligence.

Just not with all this Matthews and Marner noise happening. Just not with a playoff race going on. Just not when you can list the Top 6 or 7 rookies in the NHL and his name won’t be among them.

Brown has been and will be an important NHL player, a buzzsaw who can do a lot of everything, score, check, push his speed, use his high-end hockey IQ, and if learns to shoot just a little better or a quicker, the offensive numbers will grow accordingly.

Brown is the kind of player you win championships with.

There will no Calder Trophy for Nikita Zaitsev. But what a bonus this free-agent defenceman has turned out to be. He is anything but perfect on a Maple Leafs defence that is anything but perfect. But he has played more shifts than any rookie in the NHL, moved up and down the Leafs lineup when necessary, played power play, played penalty kill, probably been overused but under the circumstances, he had to be.

Zaitsev is a 25-year-old rookie, six years older than Matthews and Marner, five years older than Nylander, mature enough to almost play as much as Zdeno Chara or Victor Hedman, and the large minus he carries around is partly deserved, partly circumstantial for a team figuring out how to play without the puck.

There will be no Calder Trophy for Zach Hyman, just more talk on whether he belongs on the left wing alongside Matthews.

Some of that is fair. Some of that is not. Babcock believes it’s the best place for him and the best for Matthews. He gets the say. We get the questions.

Yet so much is impressive about Hyman, and that’s before he ever gets on the ice. Then he starts playing and playing and playing. He doesn’t stop. He’s the Leafs Energizer Bunny. He has what coaches like to call a motor.

If he ever gets a big-time shot - players can develop that in the summertime - quicker, harder, more accurate - he might resolve some of the questions that seemingly surround him.

Hyman leads all NHL rookies in time on the ice shorthanded and is actually second among forwards behind Jay Beagle of Washington for penalty killing minutes. The Leafs have gone from 13th to 9th in penalty killing - and the number that was prominent in the pre-fancy stats days was 100. If your penalty killing and power play percentages add up to being over 100, word was you had a pretty good team. If it was below 100, not so much.

Last season, the Leafs were below 100 and last in the NHL standings. This year, they come in at 107, and are in a playoff fight.

There will be no Calder Trophy for Nikita Soshnikov, the most forgettable of the Maple Leafs rookies. Soshnikov seems to fit nicely on a stronger fourth line with Brian Boyle and Matt Martin and with a look that can do more. A look he has to turn into something more tangible.

He has a man’s shot but doesn’t shoot enough, and when he does it’s not accurate enough. But it’s there and it’s dangerous. The seventh-best rookie on the Leafs in this season of NHL rookies.

Who’s ever had a seventh-best rookie on a team before?

And like Marner, like Matthews, like all of them, all with more to give.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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