On the night the NHL announced its 2025-26 James Norris Memorial Trophy winner, Zach Werenski thought he was attending a family barbecue. His wife Odette was there. His newborn baby was there. A hidden NHL camera crew was also there — waiting to capture the moment a kid from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, who once spent an entire season watching from the press box on injured reserve, became the greatest defenseman in the world.
What happened next was equal parts jubilation and controversy. Because while Werenski’s win was entirely deserved, the more complicated story — the one hockey fans are still arguing about — is the player who led all NHL defensemen in scoring by fourteen points, was not even named a finalist, and had to watch three other men accept his spotlight.
That man is Evan Bouchard. And his absence from the finalist list may be the most confounding omission in recent Norris history.
A First in Blue Jackets History
To understand just how significant this moment is, consider what came before it. The Columbus Blue Jackets have existed since 2000. Rick Nash won the Maurice Richard Trophy. Sergei Bobrovsky won two Vezina Trophies. Seth Jones was considered for a decade to be one of the best defensemen in the game. None of them ever won a Norris.
Werenski is the first. Ever.
His 2025-26 season was a masterpiece of sustained offensive dominance from the blue line. In 75 games, he posted 22 goals, 59 assists, and 81 points — a 1.08 points-per-game pace. He led all NHL defensemen in even-strength goals (18), shots on goal (260), and multi-point games (26). He ranked second in average ice time at 26 minutes and 37 seconds per game. His Corsi rate at five-on-five sat at a commanding 55.4 percent shot attempt share, and his expected goals-against rate at five-on-five was the best among all Norris candidates.
He did this on a Columbus Blue Jackets team that finished 40-30-12 and missed the playoffs. There was no Nathan MacKinnon to pass to. There was no Leon Draisaitl running a power play behind him. It was Werenski, carrying an offense largely on his own back, and doing it at an elite level for the second consecutive year.
With 1,589 voting points and 113 first-place ballots from the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association — more than double runner-up Cale Makar’s 47 — this was not a fractured field handing a plurality winner a narrow prize. This was a clear, decisive consensus. The voters spoke with one voice.
The Motivation Behind the Mission
Werenski’s journey to this moment is not a straight line. Drafted eighth overall by Columbus in 2015, his career was interrupted by a serious injury that limited him to just 13 games in 2022-23. His resurgence has been methodical and remarkable: 57 points in 2023-24, 82 points in 2024-25 when he finished as Norris runner-up, and now 81 points in 2025-26 as the winner.
Finishing second last season lit something in him. “I think the biggest thing for me last year, being a finalist,” Werenski said, “is I wanted to prove to not only myself, but to everyone, that last season wasn’t a fluke and I could do it again.”
He proved it. Emphatically.
The numbers place him in extraordinary company. He is now just the fifth American-born defenseman in NHL history to record multiple 80-point seasons — and only the third to do so in consecutive seasons, alongside Phil Housley and the great Brian Leetch. He is also just the third American defenseman to post back-to-back 20-goal seasons, joining Phil Housley and Brian Leetch. His career totals — 135 goals, 330 assists, and 465 points across 642 games — include an NHL record among defensemen active since his 2016-17 debut: 104 career even-strength goals.
A nine-game point streak between January 22 and February 28 — 13 points, the longest by a Blue Jackets defenseman in franchise history — was emblematic of his impact. During that stretch, Columbus went 20-3-4 and climbed 11 positions in the Eastern Conference standings. Teammate Erik Gudbranson put it plainly: “Just his size, his skating ability. I find when he’s on the ice, he dictates the other nine players that are on the ice.”
The Olympic Moment That Changed Everything
If Werenski’s regular season built his case, the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics may have sealed it.
On February 22, 2026, in the gold medal game between the United States and Canada, Werenski stripped the puck from Nathan MacKinnon in overtime, sent a cross-ice pass to Jack Hughes, and watched Hughes bury the winner. The United States won 2-1 and claimed its first Olympic gold medal in men’s hockey since the 1980 Miracle on Ice. At the time of the Games, Werenski ranked second among all NHL defensemen in both goals and points. The entire hockey world was watching, and he delivered the defining play of the tournament.
The Norris voting window was open. That moment mattered.
Critics — including ESPN analysts — correctly noted that Olympic performance is not supposed to factor into individual NHL award voting. But to pretend that human beings casting ballots are immune to recency bias and narrative momentum is to misunderstand how awards voting actually works. Werenski’s Olympic heroics gave him a global stage at precisely the right moment. Evan Bouchard, meanwhile, was not invited to participate — a detail that looms large over the entire controversy.
Cale Makar: Brilliant, But Not His Year
The runner-up, Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche, needs no defense of his legacy. He owns the second-best career points-per-game rate among defensemen in NHL history at 1.08 — trailing only Bobby Orr (1.39 PPG). He was appearing in his sixth consecutive Norris finalist ballot, tied for the most in the modern era. His Colorado Avalanche won the Presidents’ Trophy with a franchise-record 121 points.
But 2025-26 was not Makar at his best. He dipped from 92 points and 30 goals the prior season to 79 points and 20 goals — still elite production by any standard, but a measurable regression from his own ceiling. Colorado’s stacked supporting cast — Nathan MacKinnon with 127 points, Martin Necas at 100 — drew reasonable questions about offensive context. And while Makar’s plus-32 rating led all Norris candidates and he blocked 118 shots (also tops in the group), the swing metrics in close individual matchups consistently broke toward Werenski.
Makar’s 47 first-place votes were respectable. They were also less than half of Werenski’s 113. In a race between two elite defenders, the separation was real.
Rasmus Dahlin’s Quiet Masterpiece
Third place belongs to Rasmus Dahlin, and his story deserves more than a footnote.
Dahlin captained the Buffalo Sabres to their first playoff appearance in 14 years — ending the longest active drought in the NHL — while posting 74 points, a career high, and setting a franchise record for even-strength points by a Sabres defenseman. He did all of this while navigating a deeply personal crisis, as his fiancée faced serious health issues back in Sweden. He was named a Masterton Trophy finalist for perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.
Buffalo ultimately fell to the Montreal Canadiens in a Game 7 overtime heartbreaker in the second round. Dahlin’s 13 first-place votes reflected genuine admiration for what he accomplished. This was his first Norris finalist appearance, and it will not be his last.
The Bouchard Problem: The Most Confounding Omission in Years
Now for the part that should genuinely bother every hockey fan who values merit-based voting.
Evan Bouchard led all NHL defensemen in points this season with 95 — 21 goals and 74 assists in 82 games. That total placed him fourth in assists among all NHL players, including forwards. His 95 points put him in the rarest of company: he joins a list that includes Bobby Orr (multiple seasons, including 139 in 1970-71), Paul Coffey (multiple seasons, including 138 in 1985-86), Denis Potvin (101 in 1978-79), Al MacInnis (103 in 1990-91), Brian Leetch (102 in 1991-92), Ray Bourque (96 in 1983-84 and 91 in 1993-94), Roman Josi (96 in 2021-22), and Erik Karlsson (101 in 2022-23) as defensemen to reach 90 points in a single season. He led all defensemen in average ice time on the Edmonton Oilers. He also led the team in shorthanded ice time.
He was not named a Norris Trophy finalist.
Bouchard himself said it stings. “When I saw that come out, I was definitely upset a little bit,” he admitted. “Stings a little bit, but you know what? You get back at it.”
The arguments used to dismiss his candidacy deserve examination — some hold water, and some do not.
The case against Bouchard centers on three pillars. First, he started the season at minus-10 through nine games, creating a narrative of defensive liability that stuck in the minds of voters long after his play improved substantially. Second, he plays alongside Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the most dangerous power play unit in the NHL (30.63 percent efficiency), raising fair questions about how much of his production is context-driven. Third, the Anaheim Ducks defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 in six games in the first round of the playoffs — a jarring, embarrassing exit that cost him the “winner” optics that Makar’s Presidents’ Trophy team and Dahlin’s playoff breakthrough provided.
Fourth — and this is where it gets uncomfortable — Bouchard was not invited to the Olympics. In a voting cycle where Werenski’s gold medal assist played on every highlight reel for weeks, Bouchard was invisible on the international stage through no fault of his own.
“Bouchard isn’t getting the love he deserves,” one ESPN analyst wrote, “probably because he wasn’t at the Olympics — which I will remind everyone, doesn’t count for this award.”
The counterarguments hold some validity. His five-on-five underlying numbers, while solid, did not match his counting stats. Edmonton’s goaltenders posted an .885 save percentage with Bouchard on the ice compared to .929 for Colorado with Makar. Some of the defensive liability concerns were real, particularly in the postseason.
But to not even name him a finalist — to leave the outright scoring leader among all defensemen off a three-person shortlist — is a jarring editorial decision that history will likely judge harshly. He finished fourth in the final vote with 593 points and 12 first-place ballots. He was right there. The voters who actually filled out their ballots recognized him more than the committee that set the finalist stage gave him credit for.
The Bigger Picture: What This Win Means
Beyond the debate and the controversy, Werenski’s Norris Trophy represents something genuinely meaningful for one of the NHL’s most long-suffering franchises.
Columbus is not a glamour market. The Blue Jackets have never won a Stanley Cup. They have never produced a Norris Trophy winner in a quarter-century of existence. For a franchise still fighting for relevance and identity in a crowded hockey landscape, this award is a landmark moment — the kind that future Blue Jackets can point to as proof that the organization can develop and retain elite talent.
Werenski did not just win a trophy. He built a case — point by point, game by game, across two consecutive elite seasons — that he belongs in the conversation with the best defensemen of his generation. The Norris Trophy voters agreed, overwhelmingly and without ambiguity.
He found out at a family barbecue, surrounded by the people who matter most to him, with a hidden camera catching every second of it. For a player who has weathered injuries, anonymity, and years of near-misses, the moment could not have been more fitting.
Looking Ahead
The 2026-27 season will bring fresh intrigue. Makar, still operating at a historical career pace, will chase a sixth Norris win. Dahlin, having now tasted finalist recognition, enters his prime years as the face of a Buffalo resurgence. Bouchard, now 26, carries the fire of legitimate grievance into training camp. Lane Hutson in Montreal and Moritz Seider in Detroit are knocking on the door.
And Werenski? He enters next season as the defending winner, with a franchise legacy cemented and a chip on his shoulder that has, by now, become his defining characteristic.
The man proves himself every single year. There is no reason to bet against him doing it again.
Final Voting Results — 2025-26 James Norris Memorial Trophy
- 1st: Zach Werenski, Columbus Blue Jackets — 1,589 voting points | 113 first-place votes | 81 points, 22 goals, 75 GP
- 2nd: Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche — 1,191 points | 47 first-place votes | 79 points, 20 goals, 75 GP
- 3rd: Rasmus Dahlin, Buffalo Sabres — 657 points | 13 first-place votes | 74 points, 19 goals, 77 GP
- 4th: Evan Bouchard, Edmonton Oilers — 593 points | 12 first-place votes | 95 points, 21 goals, 82 GP
- 5th: Moritz Seider, Detroit Red Wings — 360 points | 5 first-place votes
- 6th: Lane Hutson, Montreal Canadiens — 357 points | 3 first-place votes | 78 points, 82 GP
- 7th: Quinn Hughes, Minnesota Wild — 282 points | 5 first-place votes | 74 GP (traded mid-season)