Surprise NHL announcement involving Jakub Dobes and three others is now confirmed
Ivan Demidov gave Martin St-Louis and the Montreal Canadiens a loud Calder message: the rebuild is no longer hiding.
The full 2026 Calder Trophy vote is out, and Montreal did far more than place one rookie near the top.
The Canadiens put 2 players in the top 4 and a third inside the top 11.
Matthew Schaefer won the award with 1,980 points and 198 first-place votes.
That part was easy to see coming once his season took off.
The real Montreal story starts with Demidov finishing second at 1,158 points.
He also picked up 120 second-place votes, which shows how firmly he sat in that next tier.
That finish matters because Demidov also led all first-year players with 62 points in 82 games.
He didn't just flash skill. He forced the entire league to notice.
Anaheim's Beckett Sennecke landed third with 958 points, but the next name is where this vote gets interesting.
Jakub Dobes came in fourth with 529 points.
Jakub Dobes turned heads across the league in Calder voting
Dobes even pulled 23 second-place votes after playing 43 regular-season games. For a goalie who barely entered the year in Calder conversations, that's a massive jump.
He finished ahead of Jimmy Snuggerud, Jesper Wallstedt, Alexander Nikishin and Ryan Leonard.
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That's not a polite mention on the ballot. That's real league-wide respect.
Then Montreal added one more name to the board. Oliver Kapanen finished 11th with 16 points in the voting.
Kapanen scored 22 goals in 82 games, giving the Canadiens another rookie who didn't look out of place over a full schedule. His $925,000 salary only adds to the value angle.
Schaefer deserved the trophy, and there's no debate there. The bigger takeaway is what sits underneath the final chart once you scan beyond first place.
Demidov, Dobes and Kapanen gave Montreal 3 rookies in the top 11.
That's the kind of organizational push that changes expectations fast, and it gives St-Louis a young core that's arriving all at once.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 13, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nick Foligno | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Parker Kelly | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Brett Kulak | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Matthew Boldy | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brent Burns | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Martin Necas | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Nico Sturm | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jack Drury | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Marcus Johansson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Quinn Hughes | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kirill Kaprizov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nicolas Roy | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Devon Toews | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Ahcan | - | - | - | |
| Mackenzie Blackwood | - | - | - | |
| Ross Colton | - | - | - | |
| Brock Faber | - | - | - | |
| Marcus Foligno | - | - | - | |
| Ryan Hartman | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||