On Tuesday, the final five NHL awards are being handed out. The second-last award of the night was the James Norris Memorial Trophy, handed out to the NHL’s best defenseman. This year’s winner is Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar. The other finalists were Predators blueliner Roman Josi and Lightning rearguard Victor Hedman.
Makar led all defensemen in goals this season with 28, becoming just the fifth blueliner in the last 30 years to get that many goals. He also finished second in points (86) to Josi, who had 96. While thought of as an offense-first defender, Makar took a regular turn on Colorado’s penalty kill this season as well which helped him average 25:40 per contest. While this voting doesn’t cover his playoff performance, the 23-year-old has been dominant in the postseason as well, picking up 26 points in 17 games while his ATOI has jumped up to a little under 27 minutes a night.
Interestingly enough, Makar actually finished second to Josi in first-place votes, 98-92. However, Makar had 22 more second-place selections (98-72) which helped him garner 25 more voting points to secure the victory. He was also the only player to appear on all 195 ballots with Josi not being put on one of them. It’s the closest vote for this award since the 2011-12 campaign when Erik Karlsson edged Shea Weber for the award. Only one other blueliner, Boston’s Charlie McAvoy, received a first-place vote.
The full results of the voting can be found here.
Well deserved, he’ll be lifting Lord Stanley and Conn Smythe soon as well.
And tonight he is!!!
lol at the voter who left Josi off the ballot.
Curious as to what sport they were watching this year, it wasn’t hockey.
Yeah. I would’ve voted for Makar myself, but what moron didn’t think that Josi was even the FIFTH best defenseman this year???
My guess is someone who was attempting to make sure he lost
Josi should have won
Does jack edwards have a vote. I could see him voting mcavoy first not voting for Josi.
1st of many
As of today, Makar would get my Conn Smythe vote…but I’m not sure what the case for him over Josi was for the Norris.
Also, Letang finished 7th in Norris voting and yinzers are like “I’d give him $4 million a year over 3 years, tops and let him walk otherwise.”
It was a pretty strong Norris field; it’s not self-evidently demented that Letang finished 7th.
With that, eeeesh. I agree that Pittsburgh can’t afford to *pay* Letang what he’s worth, and handing out much term to a guy his age isn’t smart, but if he was 25 instead of 35, he’d be worth $9MM AAV on the open market easily. He’s certainly a better defenseman than anyone making that much except Makar, Josi and McAvoy.
He’s better than anyone “except Makar, Josi or McAvoy” BUT you can’t pay him what he’s worth because he’s OLD even though he’s coming off his best season EVER and is a fitness freak and NOT keeping him ENDS the Crosby era.
This age fixation ignores EVERYTHING else. Literally everything else.
Of course it does. Because old players decline and retire. Barring a career-ending injury, Makar and McAvoy will still be playing — and likely at a high level — five years from now. (Hell, they’re young enough that they may well be impact players TEN years from now. At which point they’d still be a couple years younger than Letang is now.) They’ll likely be top-ten Norris finalists five years from now.
Five years from now Letang will be in a rocking chair. 40 year old defensemen aren’t top-ten Norris finalists. It’s happened exactly twice since the NHL-WHA merger, and outstanding though Letang’s career has been, he’s not in the same category as Ray Bourque and Niklas Lidstrom.
Hell, there were only two skaters over 40 in the NHL last year. Only three the year before. The same three the year before that. You have to go back eight years before finding as many as four guys that age wearing a NHL sweater, and no more recently than 2016 was there so much as ONE — Jaromir Jagr in 2016 — who was a genuine impact player. Being a fitness freak is no guarantee: Zdeno Chara’s famous for that, and he’s been an empty shell for four seasons now. EVERY “era” ends, sooner or later, and the Penguins aren’t uniquely immune to the ravages of time.
Now if the Pens play the odds, this is when they start offering Letang a year-to-year, low AAV in favor of large performance bonuses. And loyal as he provably is, Letang may even take that. He just doesn’t have to do so. Someone will offer him four years, and someone will offer him Norris money.
Our (remaining) window is now.
Five years from now we’ll be awful.
Letang can have one leg and his contract can be the biggest albatross in the league AND IT DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL. Literally, at all.
Letting Letang go now (with NO available replacement) ends the Crosby era. That day. Years earlier than it should.
This is the epitome of both starting at one tree (age) and not seeing the forest and being penny wise and pound foolish.
If overpaying Letang prevents Crosby from wasting the rest of his career that is called a great investment.
“Now if the Pens play the odds, this is when they start offering Letang a year-to-year, low AAV in favor of large performance bonuses. And loyal as he provably is, Letang may even take that. ”
Literally, just had the best year of his career, but NOW…when he’s weeks away from UFA status…is the time to low ball him?
K.
Letang has been clear that he wants market value and he’ll get it. And we should pay it.
(shrugs) Pittsburgh has just seven forwards under contract. Yeah, sure, they have the cap space to hand $9MM deals to both Letang and Malkin. And then they’ve got just $6MM left to sign everyone else. Rakell, Rodrigues, Heinen, Kapanen, Boyle, that’s almost all of their middle-six production, and they’re all free agents, and you couldn’t sign them all with twice $6MM. A backup goalie to re-sign or obtain as well. There is no way in hell they’re going to pull that off. You’d have to (say) buy out Marino AND Zucker to manage that much.
And that’s just trying to reassemble the squad that bombed out of the first round of the playoffs four straight years. That’s not actually trying to IMPROVE the team. Without which Pittsburgh will just slowly slide into irrelevancy, and Crosby/Letang/Malkin will get old all the same.
You’re too smart a guy to let your inner fanboy override your common sense. This is a team that has exactly TWO stars under the age of 30 (presuming you’re prepared to call Jarry one). The championship window with the current roster is already shut. It’s just now a matter of a slow slide to the year they miss the playoffs altogether, just so you and the yinzers can have the pleasure of seeing Letang and Malkin retire in Penguins uniforms, and then go through that painful rebuild all the same.
Roman Josi should have won