A year removed from winning the 2024 James Norris Memorial Trophy, Quinn Hughes is once again up for the award given to the best all-around defenceman in the NHL.
The NHL announced the three finalists for the 2025 Norris Trophy on Tuesday morning: Hughes, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski. As is often the case with the Norris, those were the three top-scoring defencemen in the NHL this season.
Unusually, two of the three nominees missed the postseason, with both Hughes' Vancouver Canucks and Werenski's Columbus Blue Jackets finishing outside the playoff picture in their respective conferences. Or perhaps it's not that unusual: two of the last four winners of the Norris were on teams that missed the playoffs: Adam Fox in 2021 and Erik Karlsson in 2023.
The Canucks and Blue Jackets missing the playoffs wasn't any fault of Hughes and Werenski, of course, as they each led their respective teams in scoring.
Makar led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 30 goals and 92 points in 80 games, Werenski was second with 23 goals and 82 points in 80 games, while Hughes was third with 16 goals and 76 points, albeit in just 68 games. That means Hughes was actually second in points per game, with 1.12 points per game behind Makar's 1.15 points per game.
The three defencemen also happened to lead the NHL in time on ice. Werenski led the league with 26:45 per game, Hughes was second at 25:44, and Makar was third at 25:43, one second behind Hughes.
Given his wide lead in total points and the first 30-goal season of his career, Makar is likely on his way to winning the Norris for the second time in his career, but it could have been a very different story if Hughes had remained healthy for the full season.
It wasn't just the games that Hughes missed, but that he was clearly not at 100 per cent when he returned from injury. At the time of his first injury in December, Hughes had 42 points in 34 games. That's a 101-point pace, which would be enough to win the scoring race, nine points ahead of Makar.
When he was injured more seriously and missed several weeks in February, he was leading all defencemen in scoring with 14 goals and 59 points in 47 games. Given the four games he missed earlier, that's a 98 points pace over 78 games, again enough to win the scoring race over Makar.
Combine that with his dominant puck possession game, and there's a strong argument to be made that if not for injuries derailing Hughes' campaign, he likely would have won his second-straight Norris Trophy.
As it is, Hughes is likely to finish a runner-up to Makar this year.
