Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) – Buffalo Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin finished a distant third in voting for the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman in 2026. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski earned the majority of the first-place votes (113), securing his first Norris Trophy honor of his career. He finished second to Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar just last year in Norris Trophy voting.<\/p>\n
Dahlin was able to secure 13 first-place votes in this year’s voting process.<\/p>\n
Overall, the Blue Jackets’ all-time points leader had 1,589 voting points, while Makar had 1,191 points and Dahlin ended up with 657.<\/p>\n
Werenski was second in scoring amongst defensemen this past season, finishing with 22 goals and 59 assists for 81 points. Makar had 20 goals and 59 assists for 79 points. <\/p>\n
Dahlin was sixth in defensive scoring with 19 goals and 55 assists for 74 points. <\/p>\n
It was refreshing to see the top-three finalists being defensemen who are excellent in both ends of the ice. Often this trophy goes to the defenseman who finishes the season with the most points.<\/p>\n
The NHL points leader from the blue line, Evan Bouchard (Edmonton Oilers), was fourth in Norris voting, followed by another strong two-way defenseman in Moritz Seider (Detroit Red Wings). Lane Hutson (Montreal Canadiens) was three points back of Seider in voting.<\/p>\n
Dahlin is also a finalist for the Masterton Trophy this year, awarded annually to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) – Buffalo Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin finished a distant third in voting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,6581,3936,3915,575,345823,103474,85,293302,51759],"class_list":["post-711412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-norris-trophy","tag-rasmus-dahlin","tag-sports","tag-wgr","tag-zach-werenski"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}