Why Drew Doughty Should Win the Norris Trophy

By Jeff Duarte
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Updated: May 1, 2015

(Photo via Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

On Monday the NHL announced the 3 nominees for the James Norris Memorial Trophy, which honors the NHL’s best defenseman. They are P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens, Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators and Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings. Many are going to accuse me of being biased here but that’s okay as I’m going to make a case anyway as to why Drew Doughty should win the Norris Trophy over his fellow nominees and previous Norris Trophy winners Subban and Karlsson.

To me there seems to be a confusion and a misconception on what it should take to win the Norris Trophy and be known as that season’s best “defenseman.” The annual voting has always seemed to lean towards the more offensive players of the league than the actual defensive ones and considering this trophy is supposed to represent the “best player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position” of defense it disappoints me that most voters seem to mistake this as the trophy that is awarded to the “most offensive defensive player” in the league instead of one with the best all-round ability.

Let’s be honest, what it takes to play “defense” isn’t on the minds of most voters for this trophy, and voting for players from Western Conference teams that actually play in the West (so not you Chicago, Detroit or St. Louis) are mostly ignored due to voters falling or being asleep as those games are actually being played in the later time zone. Waking up the next morning and just watching the highlights of the previous night’s WC games does not count as a proper method of analysing a true defensive player, especially when it comes being responsible for voting a winner for that award. The “East Coast Biased” theory isn’t a theory but a real thing.

If I’m to use a sample that starts in 1994 (because that is when the NHL changed to the NBA inspired Eastern and Western Conference format from the confusing but fun Campbell and Wales Conference format) to 2014, the “East Coast biased” theory doesn’t hold up from a quick or far glance as there have been 14 Western Conference award winners over 6 winners from the East. But when you look more closely into this you will see that only 3 of those WC winners weren’t playing for either the Detroit Red Wings (who play now in the EC because the city of Detroit is IN the eastern time zone and because of this voters have always easily watched their games) or the Chicago Blackhawks (who voters can easily watch as well as Chicago is in the Central time zone and only an hour behind). That’s 11 WC Norris trophy winners taken away from the overall and original count of 14. The final 3 award winners were from St. Louis (also in the central time zone) and Los Angeles. In short, only Rob Blake from the Los Angeles Kings in 1998 has won the Norris Trophy for a team that plays in the pacific time zone in 20 years or since the NHL adopted the Eastern and Western conference format. I’m shaking my head in disappointment as I write this.

I’m not going to say that P.K. Subban didn’t deserve his 2013 Norris Trophy win or Erik Karlsson didn’t deserve his 2012 Norris Trophy win but what I will say is that defensively, both men don’t hold a candle to Drew Doughty. If one is just looking at the 3 nominee’s offensive stats for the 2014-15 season than Doughty with his 7 goals and 46 points falls well short of Karlsson’s league leading 21 goals and 66 points or P.K’s 15 goals and 60 points. But when looking at the same 3 players and judging which player has the best all-round ability in that position, the order of that list dramatically changes as the offensive stats just become one branch of a much larger tree.

Drew Doughty had a 56.4% Corsi-For Percentage during 5 on 5 play which is much higher than Karlsson’s 52.8% or P.K’s 52.1%. Why is Doughty’s possession rate much higher than the other 2 nominees? Well that’s because Doughty has the puck on his stick a lot longer that the other 2 players do and when Doughty has possession of that puck, that means the opposing team doesn’t have it and can score with it. With all their offensive flare (not Ric Flair “WOOOO!”) P.K actually led the league in puck giveaways by a defenseman with 112 while Karlsoon was third with 99. Doughty was 10th with only 80. Add the factor that Doughty was second in the league with ice-time at 28:59 (behind Minnesota’s Ryan Suter) but first with average shifts per game at 32.6 and played on both the power-play AND penalty-kill (plus regular play of course) that is an eye opener of a player’s worth on the defensive end and show’s the wide gap of where Doughty is as a true defensive player and where P.K. and Karlsson are not. To break it down, when needing an example of puck possession in a defensive play, Doughty was a lot more successful of getting out of his zone with the puck (and therefore ending a potential offensive threat by the opposing team) than P.K or Karlsson where. Isn’t that what a solid defensemen is supposed to do by getting the opposing team to stop being an offensive threat?

P.K. Subban does play on the penalty killing unit on occasion for the Montreal Canadiens which is unlike Erik Karlsson for the Ottawa Senators because Ottawa doesn’t trust Karlsson enough to be killing anything defensively. Doughty only slightly betters P.K with 144 blocked shots in comparison to P.K’s 142 but both edge out Karlsson by a large margin with his measly 89 blocked shots. Both P.K Subban with his league leading puck giveaways and Erik Karlsson’s more “avoid getting hit by the puck at all times” method of playing defense make them both high risks for their teams by turning the puck over, especially when down a man where Drew Doughty is out there for everything in all situations, especially to kill off penalties. He can be trusted in those tough situations or in close games where a dire defensive moment is needed and what is more defensive than killing a penalty right?

As a bonus, Doughty also leads the 3 nominees in hits as he threw a total of 152 hits. The other 2 didn’t even crack the 100 mark as P.K. got 97 and Karlsson 93. Doughty can lay the “BOOM” and intimidate the opposing players from entering the Los Angeles Kings zone. P.K also has a crushing body check and Karlsson can show one good enough to be on a highlight reel on occasion but neither are a consistent shark (not San Jose) like threat like Doughty is.

Putting all this in perspective too is that Doughty accomplished all this while carrying an underachieving Los Angeles Kings team in a heavier and more suffocating Western Conference. P.K. Subban and Erik Karlsson can both afford to be more free with their play as the Eastern Conference as a whole is more “goals” oriented than the West. If P.K. or Karlsson make a defensive mistake and it costs them a goal, the standard Eastern Conference reaction is to score another goal or 3 to make things even again. In the West, one goal against can mean certain doom. Doughty had to anchor the Kings defense without the aid of number 2 defensemen Slava Voynov due to his long-term suspension. Don’t forget that Alec Martinez and Jake Muzzin were in and out of the line up with injuries as well and Matt Greene and Robyn Regehr aren’t the defensive players they used to be. Oh yeah and some AWESOME player and leader named Willie Mitchell wasn’t re-signed in the 2014 off-season and went to Florida. Doughty did some major defensive heavy lifting for a team that was missing some key personal and having been burnt out after playing in 3 straight Junes while winning the Stanley Cup (and say it with me), TWICE IN 3 YEARS! Considering the defensive stats that he still ended up with that is seriously incredibly impressive!

P.K. plays for a team that had goaltender Carey Price play some of the most amazing regular season hockey in a very, very long time. To the point that Price might not only win the Vezina Trophy for Goalie of the Year but the Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP as well! It is very, very rare for a goaltender to win the MVP award. In the last 41 years only Jose Theodore of the same Montreal Canadiens in 2002 and Hall of Famer Dominik Hasek of the Buffalo Sabres in 1997 and 1998 have won the award. Legendary goalies like Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Mike Richter, Tom Barrasso, Eddie Belfour, Billy Smith, Bernie Parent and Grant Fuhr have never gotten close enough to the trophy to even sniff it. This also goes for legendary old-time hockey goalies like Terry Sawchuck, Glenn Hall and Johnny Bower. Price possibly being nominated and maybe even winning it would be amazing and would put him in the higher echelon of NHL goalkeepers but it also down grades P.K. Subban’s defensive play. Who do you think bailed P.K. whenever he coughed up the puck in a league leading fashion? That’s right, it was Carey Price with his historical year. Price being nominated for the Hart Trophy is pretty much saying that he was the lone reason for Montreal’s success this season. That leaves P.K. out in the cold for the Norris trophy. Whether it’s Montreal or not, you can’t have both your cake and eat it too. Maybe Price should be going up for the Norris instead of Subban?

The Ottawa Senators had a “Cinderella” like season where there wasn’t much expected of them after the firing of former Coach of the Year Paul MacLean and hiring the little known Dave Cameron to replace him. Most were predicting the team to crash and burn but the opposite happened instead when the Sens went on a hot streak and found themselves in a playoff spot. As Captain of the team and the league leader in offensive stats for defensemen, Erik Karlsson truly did have a large hand in what the Sens accomplished but he wasn’t the only important hand. “Rookie” goaltender Andrew Hammond came out of nowhere and went 20-1 2 with a 1.79 G.A.A and a .941 save percentage to turn more than a few heads. Who do you think was bailing Karlsson out when he coughed up the puck in a third place league leading fashion? As reliable as Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick was from the All-Star break to the end of the regular season, it was Drew Doughty that was bailing himself out. He barely coughed up the puck at all when compared to the defensive stats of the other 2 nominees.

The NHL awards are set to happen on June 24th in Las Vegas and 2 things automatically come to my mind when predicting what is going to happen that night. One, Drew Doughty is gonna be let loose in Vegas and he is going to have more than a great time (and hopefully stays clear of Jarret Stoll (BOOM!) and 2, Erik Karlsson is going to be voted to win the Norris Trophy. I feel the powers that be are going to once again be blinded by offensive stats and by the strong push the Senators had to reach the playoffs at the later half of the season. P.K. Subban won’t win either because the voters are going to be salivating at the mouth too much over Carey Price’s accomplishments and Doughty is going to be forgotten due to his lesser offensive stats and have a major strike unfairly against him due to the Kings not making the playoffs.

If the voters really wanted to do the right thing by actually judging a defensive player properly than they will have to wake up and do some actual research like I had to do for this article. My gut and experience tells me they won’t. Their laziness is so predictable and it angers me that many voters don’t take this more seriously. This needs to seriously change.

Drew Doughty should win the Norris trophy over the other 2 nominees because he IS the best defensemen in the NHL who demonstrated this year (and every year) that he has the best all-round ability in that position. Period! It’s time to give that trophy to someone who actually fits the criteria and truly deserves the award! Enough with all the Eastern Conference biased offensive defensmen stat nonsense that has tarnished this once prestigious award. Let’s make the Norris Trophy mean what it was supposed to mean again!

As I mentioned before the unfairness of the voting system in the NHL angers me and needs to be improved but in the end I do cheer up when thinking about when the time does come when Erik Karlsson or P.K. Subban are announced to have won the 2014-15 Norris Trophy over Drew Doughty. I think and smile about the end of the night when they are shining that sucker up and taking their pictures with it, feeling on top of the world while somewhere down that same strip, Drew Doughty is out there having the time of his life while wearing his 2 Stanley Cup rings and maybe even his 2 Olympic Gold Medals … and laughing about it all night long.

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