Apple podcast title. The deep dive. The James
Norris Memorial Trophy and the NHL's greatest
defenseman. Apple podcast description. What does
it take to be the absolute best at playing defense
in the National Hockey League? In this deep dive,
we unpack the history, legends, and criteria
of the James Norris Memorial Trophy. From Bobby
Orr's untouchable records to the voting secrets
of the Professional Hockey Writers Association,
we break down everything you need to know about
the NHL's top defensive honor. Whether you're
a diehard hockey fan or just love learning about
the peak of athletic achievement, this episode
gives you the ultimate shortcut to being well
-informed. Tune in to explore the rare crossover
between the Norris and Hart trophies, the dominance
of the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens,
and what it truly means to have the greatest
all -round ability on the ice. Keywords, NHL,
James Norris Memorial Trophy, best NHL defenseman,
hockey history. Bobby Orr and Nicholas Lindstrom,
Hart Trophy Hockey Awards. Welcome to the Deep
Dive. I'm really glad you decided to join us
today because we have a fantastic mission ahead
of us. We really do. Today we're exploring a
Wikipedia article detailing the history and legacy
of the James Norris Memorial Trophy. And, I mean,
if you spend any time watching the NHL, you know
that the guys on the blue line really dictate
the pace of the entire game. Oh, absolutely.
They're the foundation. Right. But what separates
a top -pairing regular from a historical icon?
Our goal today is to give you a comprehensive
shortcut to understanding the absolute pinnacle
of defensive excellence in the National Hockey
League. We're talking the best of the best. Exactly.
We're going to look at the history, the voting
mechanics, and the really elite criteria that
define this award. And to set the stakes right
out of the gate, I want to give you a stat that
perfectly frames how high the bar is set here.
This is wild. It is. Think about this. Almost
every single eligible player who has ever won
the Norris Trophy is currently sitting in the
Hockey Hall of Fame. Out of the entire history
of this award stretching way back to the 1950s,
there are only two exceptions among eligible
players. That is the caliber of athlete we are
discussing today. Winning this trophy is essentially
a golden ticket to hockey immortality. I've got
my resident expert here with me, and together
we are going to decode the criteria, analyze
the legends who basically monopolize the award,
and explore some of the specific voting quirks
that shape the history of the NHL. Yeah, there's
a lot to dig into. Okay, let's unpack this. Where
does the James Norris Memorial Trophy... actually
originate, and I guess who was James Norris?
Well, it takes us right back to the foundational
eras of the National Hockey League. The trophy
is named in honor of James E. Norris, who was
the longtime owner of the Detroit Red Wings.
Okay. His tenure spanned two full decades, from
1932 all the way to 1952. And right after his
era ended, the NHL decided to establish an award
in his name. Makes sense. Yeah. The trophy was
first awarded at the conclusion of the 1953 -54
NHL season. And fittingly, that very first James
Norris Memorial Trophy went to a player from
the Detroit Red Wings, Red Kelly. Oh, wow. Keeping
it in the family right away. Exactly. Yeah. But
what really sets this award apart isn't just
its namesake. It's the specific language the
league used to define the criteria. Right. The
actual rulebook definition. Yeah. The award is
officially given to the defense player who demonstrates
throughout the season the greatest all -round
ability in the position. Greatest all -round
ability. Right. What's fascinating here is that
the NHL deliberately avoided tying the award
to a specific statistical metric. So no hard
numbers. None. They didn't mandate that it goes
to the defenseman with the highest plus minus
or the most points or the most blocked shots.
The phrase greatest all -around ability requires
a player to be a complete master of their craft
in all three zones of the ice. That wording leaves
a lot of room for interpretation, though, which
places a heavy burden on the people actually
casting the vote. Oh, yeah, it's a huge debate
every year. Because it isn't a fan vote. or a
general manager's poll. The voting is actually
handed over to the members of the Professional
Hockey Writers Association at the end of the
regular season. The PHWA. Right. These are the
journalists analyzing the shifts, the underlying
metrics, and the nightly performances. But they
don't just pick one winner. No, it's much more
complicated than that. The PHWA uses a weighted
system where each voter ranks their top five
candidates. They assign 10 points for a first
place vote. Seven for second, five for third,
three for fourth, and one for fifth. It's a very
specific breakdown. It is. How does that specific
mathematical breakdown impact who actually walks
away with the hardware at the NHL awards ceremony?
It heavily influences the outcome because it
effectively neutralizes polarizing players. What
do you mean by polarizing? Let's say you have
a defenseman who puts up massive offensive numbers
but is a known liability in his own end. A fraction
of the writers might give him a first place vote
purely for his scoring. Because points are flashy.
Exactly. But the writers who prioritize traditional
defensive metrics, the guys looking at blocked
shots and positioning, they might leave him off
their ballots entirely. Ah, so he gets zero points
from them. Right. And getting zero points on
a large chunk of ballots will completely tank
a player's overall score. To accumulate enough
points to win under that 10 -7 -5 -3 -1 system,
a defenseman has to consistently appear at the
very top of ballots across the entire association.
I need everyone on board. It forces a consensus.
You have to convince the analytics crowd, the
traditional eye test crowd, and the local beat
writers across all the different markets that
you possess that all -round ability. When you
realize how mathematically difficult it is to
get all those writers to agree on one name using
that specific point system, it makes the record
set by certain historical players look completely
fictional. It really does. Getting that consensus
once is a career -defining achievement. Right.
But we need to talk about Bobby Orr of the Boston
Bruins, who managed to get that consensus eight
consecutive times. Eight times in a row. It's
unbelievable. From the 1967 -68 season all the
way through the 1974 -75 season. No... Other
defensemen in the National Hockey League touched
that trophy. How does a player even do that?
How do you maintain a grip on a subjective, writer
-voted award for almost a decade? What makes
Orr's eight -year streak so insightful isn't
just the sheer number of wins. It's that he fundamentally
forced the writers to change how they viewed
the position. He rewrote the criteria. Completely.
Before Orr, all -round ability heavily favored
players who cleared the crease, threw heavy hits,
and made safe outlet passes. Stay -at -home defensemen.
Right. Or proved that controlling the offensive
zone and driving transition at an elite level
was just as vital to defense. He was putting
up 100 plus point seasons. Yeah. Including an
astronomical 139 points in the 1970 -71 season.
139 points for a defenseman. It's absurd. He
wasn't just joining the rush, he was leading
it. But he also had the skating ability to recover
and defend his own net. He broke the curve. So
the writers couldn't ignore him even if they
wanted to? The writers essentially had no choice
but to give him the first place vote every single
year because his impact on the game's outcome
was undeniable. It effectively rendered all those
traditional voting biases moot. OK, so Orr is
the obvious outlier with that consecutive streak.
But if we look at sustained excellence over a
whole career, who else managed to consistently
beat that rigorous voting system and stay at
the top of the ballots? That is where you have
to examine the careers of guys like Doug Harvey
and Nicholas Lidstrom. They both won the award
seven times. Seven times each. Incredible. But
what is truly engaging about these two is how
differently they achieved that sustained excellence.
Doug Harvey was a master of positional dominance
in the 1950s and early 60s. He was with Montreal,
right? Yes. He won it back to back to back to
back from 1954 to 1958 with the Montreal Canadiens.
Took a one -year break, won two more with Montreal,
and then grabbed his seventh with the New York
Rangers in 1961 -62. So what was his secret?
Harvey controlled the tempo of the game. He was
famous for literally just holding onto the puck
to slow down the play. Just freezing the game.
Exactly. He'd dictate the pace and frustrate
the opposition's forecheck. He commanded the
ice through sheer hockey IQ. And then you contrast
that with Nicholas Lidstrom in the modern era,
who won all seven of his Norris trophies with
the Detroit Red Wings between 2001 and 2011.
Lidstrom wasn't known for throwing massive hits
or fighting, which used to be hallmarks of the
position. Exactly. Lindstrom earned the nickname
the perfect human because his game was built
on flawless geometry and anticipation. Geometry.
I love that. It's true, though. He rarely had
to throw a massive punishing hit because his
stick positioning and gap control meant he was
already intercepting the pass before the play
even developed. He was just always in the right
place. Always. He was a modern analytics darling
before those metrics were even mainstream. Writers
gave Lidstrom seven Norris trophies because his
presence on the ice almost guaranteed a clean
breakout and a suppression of high -danger scoring
chances. So both Harvey and Lidstrom defined
all -around ability for their respective eras.
They just used entirely different toolkits. Sawed
-on. We also have to mention Ray Bork. The Wikipedia
article notes that Bork won the trophy five times,
which is obviously phenomenal. Huge achievement.
But it's the secondary step that really puts
his career into perspective. In addition to those
five wins, Bork was in the top three vote -getters
an additional 10 times. That is the crazy part.
10 more times. That means for 15 different seasons,
the collective hockey media considered Ray Bork
to be one of the three best defensemen on the
planet. The longevity and consistency required
to not age out of that top tier for a decade
and a half is staggering. If we connect this
to the bigger picture. you start to see undeniable
patterns of franchise dominance. Oh, so? Well,
because Bobby Orr, Ray Bork, and later as Dino
Chara all played for the Boston Bruins. That
single organization holds the record for the
most Norris trophies in NHL history with 14 wins.
14 for one team. They practically built their
historical identity around elite defensive play.
And sitting right behind them in second place
are the Montreal Canadiens with 12 Norris trophies.
Also an insane number. Yeah, built on the legacies
of Doug Harvey, Jacques Le Perriere, Larry Robinson,
Chris Chelios, and later P .K. Subban. For massive
stretches of NHL history, the road to the Norris
Trophy ran squarely through those two original
six franchises. It's really interesting you point
out the Bruins and Canadians' historical dominance
because when you look at the modern era, that
centralization seems to be fracturing. It's definitely
spreading out. The standards set by guys like
Orr, Harvey, and Lidstrom are still the measuring
sticks, but the geography has shifted. We're
seeing winners from all over the map. You have
Kale McCarr of the Colorado Avalanche winning.
multiple times alongside Quinn Hughes taking
it for the Vancouver Canucks. Don't forget Eric
Carlson. Right, Eric Carlson, who has won it
three times, twice with Ottawa, and most recently
with the San Jose Sharks in the 2022 -23 season.
The Carlson win in San Jose is actually a perfect
case study of how the PHWA voting criteria is
shifting. How so? In that 2022 -23 season, Carlson
put up over 100 points. He became the first defenseman
to do that since Brian Leach in 1992. Offensively,
he was historically brilliant. But defensively,
his underlying metrics and traditional stats
like plus minus were heavily debated. It caused
a massive rift among the voters. Right. There
is an ongoing debate among fans today regarding
exactly that. When a guy like Carlson wins with
massive offensive numbers, but maybe lacks in
his own defensive zone, how strictly do the voters
actually adhere to that all -round ability mandate
today compared to the 1950s? It reveals that
the interpretation of all -round ability is fluid.
In today's NHL, which emphasizes speed, puck
possession and transition, many voters believe
that the best defense is simply never letting
the other team have the puck. The best defense
is a good offense. Exactly. If a defenseman is
generating so much offense that the puck is constantly
in the opponent's zone, it is viewed by many
as a highly effective form of defense. So the
voters are changing their minds on what defense
even is. The Carlson vote showed that historical
traditionalists who demand heavy corner battling
and crease clearing are slowly being outnumbered
by voters who prioritize transition metrics and
offensive generation from the blue line. Here's
where it gets really interesting, because as
nuanced as the Norris Trophy voting is, there
is an even higher, more elusive tier of greatness
that we have to discuss. Oh, yeah. The double.
I'm talking about the crossover between the Norris
Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy. Winning
the Hart as a blue liner is almost unthinkable.
Very rare. Given the writer's historical bias
toward high scoring forwards for the MVP, a defenseman
taking home both the Norris and the Hart in the
exact same year. a completely transcendent season.
In the entire history of the Norris Trophy dating
back to 1953, only two players have ever pulled
off that dual crown. Two players across seven
decades of hockey. Naturally, the first name
on that list is Bobby Orr. Of course. During
his eight -year streak of winning the Norris,
he also captured the Hart Trophy three separate
times. In the 69 -70 season, the 70 -71 season,
and the 71 -72 season. He was so far ahead of
his peers that he wasn't just the best defenseman,
he was undeniably the most valuable asset in
the entire sport. Which is saying something in
that era. But who was the second player? It took
almost 30 years for it to happen again. In the
1999 -2000 season, Chris Pronger of the St. Louis
Blues put together a season so suffocating that
the writers awarded him both the Norris and the
Hart. Or and Pronger. That is the entire list.
And Pronger's win is fascinating because it came
during the heart of the dead puck era, a time
when scoring was heavily suppressed. across the
league. Pronger's dual crown season is the antithesis
of Bobby Orr's offensive revelation, yet it was
equally dominant in its own context. How did
Pronger do it without the points? Well, Pronger
wasn't putting up 100 points. Instead, he was
playing nearly 30 minutes a night, acting as
an absolute physical force and shutting down
the opposing team's top forwards shift after
shift. Just a wall. He commanded the defensive
zone so thoroughly that the writers recognized
his impact was just as valuable as a 50 -goal
scorer. And that leads us to a highly specific
rule of thumb that emerges from the statistics
of these two awards. As of 2025, no defenseman
has ever won the Hart Trophy without also winning
the Norris Trophy in that same season, at least
since the Norris was introduced. That makes logical
sense, though. If you are a defenseman having
a season spectacular enough to be voted the most
valuable player in the league, then by definition,
you have to be the best defenseman in the league
that year. Exactly. The writers have never split
their logic. They have never looked at the ballots
and said, well, this defenseman is the MVP, but
this other guy gets the Norris. It's a package
deal. Precisely. Although we should note that
prior to 1953, before the Norris even existed,
defensemen did win the Hart. Oh, right. Legends
like Herb Gardner, Babe Seabird, Ebby Goodfellow,
Tommy Anderson, and Babe Pratt all took home
MVP honors. And you have to highlight Eddie Shore
of the Boston Bruins, who won the Hart trophy
four times in the 1930s. Four MVPs for a defenseman.
Had the Norris existed during his era, Shore
would undoubtedly have a massive collection of
them. That history. Really underscores the point
I made at the very beginning of this deep dive.
Let's bring that back around because the Hall
of Fame guarantee attached to this award is unparalleled
in professional sports. It's the ultimate predictor.
If you look at the list of retired eligible players
who have won the James Norris Memorial Trophy.
Every single one of them has been inducted into
the Hockey Hall of Fame, save for exactly two
players. The two exceptions. Randy Carlisle,
who won it with Pittsburgh in the 1980 -81 season,
and P .K. Saban, who won it with Montreal in
the 2012 -13 season. The exceptions of Carlisle
and Saban actually add important context to what
the voters value long term. Why are they the
exceptions? Carlisle had one massive Norse winning
season, whereas offensive numbers spiked. But
he didn't sustain that elite top -tier production
for the rest of his career. Ah, so it was a peak
versus longevity issue. Exactly. And Sibban was
an incredibly dynamic and brilliant player who
had a very high peak. But injuries and a changing
game shortened his window of absolute dominance
compared to the guys who put in 15 years at the
top. The Hall of Fame wants a decade of dominance.
Right. The Hall of Fame voters look for that
sustained, decade -long excellence. But aside
from those two... The Norris has a 100 % success
rate in predicting Hall of Famers. That's a staggering
hit rate. Obviously, active players like McCarr,
Hughes, Carlson, Roman Josie, and Anna Fox aren't
eligible yet. But for the retired guys, the historical
record is ironclad. So what does this all mean
when we compile the history of James E. Norris,
the rigorous 10 -7, 5 -3 -1 voting system, the
back -to -back records of guys like Orr and Lidstrom
and the MVP crossovers? What is the real takeaway
for you as a hockey fan? Ultimately, it means
that the James Norris Memorial Trophy operates
as the ultimate filter for greatness. It separates
the highly skilled from the historically significant.
I like that. When the Professional Hockey Writers
Association cast their ballots, they were actively
curating the pantheon of the sport. The criteria
of greatest all -around ability demands a level
of completeness that exposes any weakness in
a player's game. There's nowhere to hide. Exactly.
To win it? A defenseman has to transcend their
own system, overcome voter biases, and prove
that they can influence the outcome of the game
in all 200 feet of the ice rink. It is the definitive
stamp of a legendary career. Separates the highly
skilled from the historically significant. Yeah.
That perfectly encapsulates why this specific
piece of silver hardware is so revered. It's
the pinnacle. So the next time you turn on a
modern NHL game and you are watching a star defenseman
walk the blue line, execute a flawless breakout
pass, or shut down a two -on -one rush, you are
equipped with the context of what they are actually
chasing. You see the history behind it. You understand
the math. This raises an important question,
though, and it's something fascinating to track
as the sport continues to evolve over the next
decade. What's the question? The foundational
text of the award still demands the greatest
all -round ability. But as we discuss with the
modern winners, the geometry and speed of the
NHL are dramatically different now. Defensemen
are frequently expected to act as a fourth forward,
seamlessly activating into the offensive zone.
Right. The game is just faster. So as the NHL
continues to prioritize speed and transition
over a heavy physical stationary defense. How
will the voters of 2030 or 2040 redefine what
all -round ability truly entails? That's a great
point. Will the perfect Norris -winning defenseman
of tomorrow look more like a roving center than
a traditional blue liner? The game never stops
changing. which means the criteria will have
to constantly adapt to the realities of the ice.
That is such a provocative thought to leave you
with. How does the definition of defensive greatness
change when the concept of defense itself is
shifting toward pure puck possession? It's going
to be a while to watch. Keep an eye on that the
next time you're watching your favorite team's
top pairing go to work. Thank you so much for
joining us on this deep dive into the James Norris
Memorial Trophy. We love breaking down these
sources to find the mechanics and the history
driving the sports we watch every day. We hope
this gave you a brilliant shortcut to understanding
the minds of the voters and the legacies of the
players on the ice. Keep asking those big questions.
Keep looking for those aha moments. And we'll
catch you on the next deep dive.