{"id":654193,"date":"2026-05-07T17:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654193\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T17:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:46:08","slug":"should-evan-bouchard-have-been-a-norris-finalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654193\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Evan Bouchard have been a Norris finalist?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The top three defensemen in the NHL have been revealed, but one notable name has been left off the sheet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The NHL announced that\u00a0<a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/buffalo-sabres\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a>\u00a0captain Rasmus Dahlin, the\u00a0<a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/colorado-avalanche\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado Avalanche\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Cale Makar and the\u00a0<a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/columbus-blue-jackets\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>\u2018 Zach Werenski have been named the finalists for the 2025-26 <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/buffalo-sabres-rasmus-dahlin-colorado-avalanche-cale-makar-columbus-blue-jackets-zach-werenski-named-finalists-2026-nhl-norris-trophy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Norris Memorial Trophy on Thursday.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">However, many are surprised that\u00a0<a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/oilersnation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a>\u00a0defender Evan Bouchard should\u2019ve at least been in the running for the honor. He led all NHL blueliners with 95 points during the regular season, scoring 21 goals and 74 assists in 82 games. However, some point to his defensive errors as a reason he isn\u2019t in the running.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">On <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gdZWnZwHtG8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">Thursday\u2019s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE<\/a>, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discussed whether Bouchard should\u2019ve been one of the three finalists for the award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Colby Cohen: It just feels like his mistakes just end up magnified. I think part of his reputation is unfair, and part of that is the reputation that he\u2019s earned. I think that, for whatever reason, his blunders just seem to end up in the back of the net in bigger situations more than others. So, my personal opinion would be Zach Werenski. \u2026 I don\u2019t have a problem with these three guys. That doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t other guys that should be involved. It doesn\u2019t mean Bouchard shouldn\u2019t be talked about. It doesn\u2019t mean he won\u2019t get votes. \u2026 Like, there can only be three, right? A lot of times in these awards, one or two guys that are probably deserving into the conversation and deserving to be a part of the award part does not make it into it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Tyler Yaremchuk: I do think a lot of people look at 95 points and say, \u2018You know, when [Roman] Josi had the year when he put up all those points, when [Erik] Karlsson had his 100-point season and was, quite frankly, dogshit defensively, still got the award.\u2019 So, that\u2019s where I think there\u2019s a bit of a gripe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">You can watch the full segment and entire episode here\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top three defensemen in the NHL have been revealed, but one notable name has been left off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-654193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}