Am I still the only one that doesn't understand the fuss behind Panarin winning the Calder back in 2016? The rules for the Calder state:

"To be eligible for the award, a player cannot have played more than 25 games in any single preceding season nor in six or more games in each of any two preceding seasons in any major professional league. Beginning in 1990-91, to be eligible for this award a player must not have attained his twenty-sixth birthday by September 15th of the season in which he is eligible."

Obviously to any rational person, Panarin fails to qualify based on him having played WAY more than 6 games in the 2 prior years in the KHL. What I don't understand is how do so many people complain about that, yet almost nobody complained about Matthews winning the year after, yet having played 36 games in the NLA (for those who don't know, the NLA is a professional league based in Switzerland) in the season before. How does any European player win the Calder? They all play in pro leagues before being drafted.

Per Wikipedia The Calder Memorial Trophy is an annual award given "to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League (NHL)." Meaning you can play as many years as you want in any other league, as long as you meet the age limit and you havent played anymore than 25 games in a given previous season, you can win.

If you would have continued reading said Wikipedia article, you would have found:

"To be eligible for the award, a player cannot have played any more than 25 regular season games previously in any single season, nor have played in more than six regular season games in each of two separate preceding seasons in any major professional league. The latter fact was perhaps most prominent when in the 1979–80 season, first-year phenom Wayne Gretzky was not eligible to win the Calder Trophy despite scoring 137 points (the previous rookie record at the time being 95), because he had played a full season the previous year in the World Hockey Association."

The NHL doesn't consider overseas leagues as "professional", so Panarin's and Matthews' time spent in the KHL and the NLA doesn't count toward the Calder requirements. With regards to Gretzky, the WHA was considered a professional league by the NHL.

The issue with Panarin wasn't with his KHL time, but with his age. He was 24 and 25 during his rookie season, as opposed to McDavid who was 18 and 19 at the time. And the arguments against Panarin weren't a legitimate basis for him being ineligible for the trophy, but more for going against the "spirit of the award". A lot of people felt that McDavid deserved it more because he was 6 years younger than Panarin.