Few players are more polarizing across the hockey world than Edmonton Oilers‘ defenceman Evan Bouchard. The offensive D-man dazzles fans with slick passes and ‘Bouch Bombs’ from the point, but also makes them pull their hair out with the occasional cartoonish blunder.

When the NHL announced its nominees for the 2025-26 James Norris Memorial Trophy on Thursday morning, his omission sparked conversation across the hockey world.

Bouchard led all defencemen in scoring this season, which typically warrants a nomination for the award. The last time a defenceman to win the scoring race failed to secure a nomination was 2020-21, when Tyson Barrie collected 48 points in the shortened season and didn’t receive a single first-place vote.

Barrie’s omission was understandable. He only won the scoring race by one point, and his poor defensive game significantly reduced his impact. Some will point to Bouchard’s defensive errors and draw a similar comparison, but that claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Wins Above Replacement is a statistic that combines numerous stats to estimate how many wins a player provides compared to a replacement-level player. According to HockeyStats, Barrie ranked 67th among defencemen in WAR in 2020-21, and Bouchard ranked 2nd this season. Not only did Bouchard post much better goal and scoring chance suppression numbers than Barrie, but he also killed penalties and achieved much more impressive offensive output. They are not the same.

This season’s nominees, Zach Werenski, Rasmus Dahlin, and Cale Makar, are all fantastic players who deserve recognition. Still, the more you dig into the numbers, the more egregious Bouchard’s snub becomes.

Over the last 20 years, the leading scorer among defencemen has won the Norris Trophy 11 times, and the second leading scorer four times. Producing offence is one of the best ways to get yourself into the conversation, and that’s for good reason.

In the modern NHL, defencemen aren’t expected to simply defend and hit. They need to be able to help facilitate offence, move the puck, and activate in the rush. The position has evolved beyond the big, physical stay-at-home archetype people associate with being a good defenceman. The ones who have the ability and the confidence to make plays with the puck provide far more value than the ones who defer to the “safe” off-the-glass-and-out plays.

Bouchard won the defenceman scoring race by a whopping 14 points this season. It’s the third-biggest margin a D-man has won it by in the salary cap era. Only Erik Karlsson (2012 and 2023) won the scoring race by more in that timeframe, and he won the Norris both times.

Defencemen have won the scoring race by at least 10 points seven times since 2006. Of that group, Bouchard is just the second defenceman to miss out on a nomination for the Norris.

2025-26 Evan Bouchard: 14 (Not Nominated)

2024-25 Cale Makar: 10 (Won Norris)

2022-23 Erik Karlsson: 25 (Won Norris)

2021-22 Roman Josi: 10 (Second)

2019-20 John Carlson: 10 (Second)

2013-14 Erik Karlsson: 13 (Seventh)

2011-12 Erik Karlsson: 15 (Won Norris)

Bouchard’s 20-goal, 95-point season is one of the most impressive outputs in recent memory. Makar is widely regarded as the best defenceman in the NHL, and even he has never scored 95 points in a season.

This begs the question: if Bouchard’s offensive production matched historical precedent for offensive defencemen who win the Norris, and he led the NHL by a considerable margin, why didn’t he even receive a nomination? I believe there are two main reasons: his reputation as a poor defender and the McDavid tax.

Anyone who plays significant minutes with Connor McDavid must contend with the narrative that 97 is responsible for their success. It’s a fair question to ask, considering McDavid is one of the greatest players of all time and can elevate anyone he plays with.

Even Leon Draisaitl faced the “McDavid merchant” allegations early in his career. But he eventually overcame them as his accomplishments piled up, and his individual dominance became undeniable. Like Draisaitl, Bouchard is a star in his own right, and it would be completely unfair to attribute most of his success to any teammate.

Bouchard played 314 five-on-five minutes without McDavid and Draisaitl this season, and in those minutes, he had a 54 percent expected goal share and 53 percent shot share. His ability to drive possession and control play was on display no matter who he shared the ice with.

While he was ultimately a minus-two on the scoresheet in the non-McDavid and Draisaitl minutes, the Oilers as a team were minus-31. Bouchard minimized the damage and positively impacted the results.

Does McDavid help elevate Bouchard? Of course. Any puck-moving defenceman would benefit from passing the puck up to the best player in the world while he winds up for a rush through the neutral zone. The problem is that few people talk about how Bouchard elevates McDavid at the same time.

With Bouchard, McDavid was plus-eight with a 55 percent expected goal share this season. Without him, he dropped to minus-two with a 48 percent expected goal share. Few defencemen in the NHL are better at getting the puck to their forwards in advantageous situations than Bouchard. His ability to extend cycles, keep pucks in at the offensive blueline, and hit his forwards with a dart through the neutral zone all supercharge McDavid’s offence.

It’s not a matter of Bouchard leeching easy points from McDavid — that’s an unfair characterization. The relationship between the two is symbiotic. Besides, it’s not like he’s the only defenceman to play big minutes with a superstar forward. One of the Norris nominees, Cale Makar, plays with Nathan MacKinnon, for example, but you rarely hear anyone using MacKinnon’s greatness to minimize his accomplishments.

Bouchard’s more subtle skill set is harder for the eye to immediately appreciate than the dynamic skating of Makar or Dahlin, but that doesn’t mean he’s not every bit as integral in producing offence. Unfortunately, the McDavid tax is extremely difficult to overcome. When your eye test doesn’t match the results, it’s a lot easier to credit McDavid than to dig a little deeper.

Bouchard’s career is littered with some of the goofiest turnovers and defensive blunders you will ever see on the blooper reel. There’s no hiding that. These mistakes have forever tarnished his reputation as a defensive player.

But what many fail to understand is that mistakes are bound to happen to players who possess the puck as often as Bouchard does. Defencemen who play over 25 minutes per night and are relied upon to move the puck and play quarterback in the offensive zone are inevitably going to turn the puck over. It’s not total turnovers that we need to consider: it’s turnover rate. How often does Bouchard turn the puck over relative to his total puck touches? In late March, NHL data analyst Mike Kelly shared some helpful statistics courtesy of Sportlogiq:

Bouchard’s turnover rate was the 14th-best in the NHL (as of late March). That’s a better rate than Werenski’s, and fewer of his turnovers led to goals than Makar’s. This perception that Bouchard is a costly turnover machine doesn’t match up with the objective evidence. He just has the puck a lot.

What about his defensive results? Even if his turnovers aren’t as catastrophic as people believe, that doesn’t mean he can’t be a liability. Let’s see how he stacks up to the nominees.

The results aren’t half bad. Bouchard’s high-danger chance and expected goal suppression are right in line with the Norris nominees. His penalty kill impact isn’t notably worse than the nominees’ either.

Bouchard’s actual goals against are the highest of the group, but much of that is on his goaltenders, who posted an .888 save percentage in his minutes. Meanwhile, each of the Norris nominees’ goaltenders has posted a save percentage well above .900.

None of the underlying numbers suggest Bouchard is doing anything notably worse defensively. His impact on high-danger chances and expected goals is strong. His turnovers leading to goals against aren’t any higher than those of other top defencemen. His even-strength defensive WAR is better than the three nominees. There’s no evidence that his defensive game should disqualify him from the Norris conversation. If anything, he’s made positive strides compared to past seasons.

Poor goaltending and a bad reputation stemming from years of loud turnovers have fooled fans and analysts alike.

There was a time when I believed that Bouchard could improve enough to win a Norris Trophy and this season, he genuinely did. His offensive production reached career highs, and he led the league by 14 points despite a down year for his team’s offence. His defensive numbers were by far the best of his career, as he matched the lowest turnover rate of his career, and did an excellent job suppressing scoring chances. All of that still wasn’t enough to even earn him a nomination.

With most of Bouchard’s defensive issues minimized, I thought his body of work offensively this season earned him stronger consideration for the award. His dominance on the power play this season stamped his position as the undisputed king of PP quarterbacks. With more goals, assists, and points on the power play than any of the nominees, he separated himself on the man advantage.

At five-on-five, Bouchard once again outscored the NHL’s consensus best defenceman, Makar, while exceeding his defensive impact, contrary to popular belief. Only Werenski had more five-on-five points.

Maybe the voters who live out East have been conditioned by too many bloopers and haven’t seen enough of Bouchard’s games for themselves to shake the narratives. Or maybe the McDavid tax is too strong for Bouchard to overcome. Or maybe his skill set is just too subtle to appreciate, given all the above factors working against him. Whatever the case, if Bouchard couldn’t get the recognition he deserved this year, it’s unlikely he ever will.