Evan Bouchard Opens Up on Norris Trophy Nomination Snub

Evan Bouchard did all he could to get into the mix, but it still wasn’t enough to even earn a nomination as a finalist for the 2025–26 Norris Trophy.

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Rasmus Dahlin, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski all had fantastic seasons and were deservedly recognized for it, announced as finalists for the award on Thursday. That said, it left out the league’s highest-scoring defenseman—by 14 points—who also came close to becoming just the seventh blueliner in NHL history to reach 100 points.

It was a surprising and disappointing result for Bouchard, who opened up about the snub during an appearance on TSN’s OverDrive on Thursday afternoon.

Bouchard said:

“For sure, yeah. When I saw that come out I was definitely upset a little bit, but you can’t really let that bother you. You don’t really think about it too much during the season—you’ve got a bigger picture, team thing. So yeah, I didn’t think about it too much until it came out today. It stings a little bit, but you know what, you get back at it, you forget about it. And like you said, there’s a lot of great defensemen in the league, so it’s kind of hard to pick between three of them,”

The 26-year-old Bouchard racked up a career-high 95 points (21 goals, 74 assists) in 82 games played this regular-season.

It’s hard to say what more Bouchard needed to do to put his name in the final three, though it goes to show just how good and deep the state of the defense position is right now in the NHL.

Others like Lane Hutson, Quinn Hughes, Moritz Seider, and even Matthew Schaefer are likely feeling the same way—slighted but motivated to push forward and get back into contention for the award in 2026–27. Assuming Connor McDavid and company are all back in Edmonton for next season, Bouchard will have as good a shot as anyone at doing just that.

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