The James Norris Memorial Trophy was first handed out in 1954 when Red Kelly was named the inaugural winner of the NHL’s best defenceman award.

Kelly led NHL defenders in scoring with 49 points in 62 games, and offensive totals have always had a heavy influence on who wins. It isn’t the only criteria, but they are a main factor.

Doug Harvey won seven of the next eight years, winning in 1955-1958 and again in 1960-1962. Harvey led the NHL in scoring in 1955, 1957 and 1961. He was third in 1956, second in 1958, sixth in 1962 and 8th in 1960. Harvey had a down year in 1959, finishing 14th in scoring, and Johnson won and finished second in points. In the early days, points were the main factor, considering there wasn’t plus/minus or other statistical data to look through. And there wasn’t an endless supply of videos to watch to help decide your vote.

Pierre Pilote won the Norris in 1963-1965, then Jacques Lapierre and Harry Howell each won once, before a young Bobby Orr changed the game for defencemen.

King Clancy was the first defender to score 40 points in 1930. He did it in 44 games, so offence has always been connected to the position, but we saw a slow increase in offence until Orr arrived.

In 1944, Babe Pratt was the first defender to surpass 50 points when he scored 58. Pilote beat him by one, scoring 59 in 1965, albeit in 18 more games.

Orr skated on the scene in 1969 and set a new standard of 64 points, but he would double that very soon.

He scored 120 points in 1970, then 139 (still the NHL record today) in 1971 and followed that up with 117, 101, 122 and 135 in 1976.

Orr rushed the puck relentlessly. He was also tough and could defend. He was the complete package, and his style of play completely changed the position.

Denis Potvin scored 98 points in 1976 and joined Orr in the 100-point club in 1979 with a 101-point season. Paul Coffey burst on the scene with the high-flying Edmonton Oilers, skating effortlessly like Orr and chasing his records. Coffey would finish his career with seven seasons with 90 points (most in the NHL), and he had five 100 point campaigns including coming one point shy of Orr’s record with 138 points in 1986. Coffey set the NHL record for most goals by a defenceman with 48 that year, besting Orr by two. Orr and Coffey own the top-1o scoring seasons in NHL history, each with five.

Ray Bourque had four 90 seasons (1984, 1987, 1991, 1994), Gary Suter (91 in 1988), Al MacInnis (90 in 1990 and 103 in 1991), Brian Leetch (102 in 1992) and Phil Housley (97 in 1993) joined the exclusive 90 point club.

Between 1970 and 1995, the NHL had 25 occasions where a defenceman produced 90 points done by the aforementioned eight men and in that 25-year span Orr won the Norris eight times, Bourque won five, Potvin three, Coffey three and Leetch one. They won 20 of the 26 awards. Larry Robinson won in 1977, and he led the NHL with 85 points. Randy Caryle won in 1981 and led scoring with 83 points. Doug Wilson won in 1982 and was second in scoring (85 to Coffey’s 89), but Wilson led the league in goals by defencemen with 39.

I’m not sure what happened in 1983 and 1984, but the voters decided to give the award to Rod Langway — I guess because they loved his defensive play. Langway, who was traded from Montreal to Washington in September of 1982, had 32 points in 1983 and was -2. He had 33 points in 1984 and was 14. Coffey scored 96 points in 1983 and was 52, but he finished sixth in voting. In 1984, Coffey scored 40 goals, had 126 points and was 52. He had 76 even-strength points, which was more than every D-man had points except three, but he still finished second in voting to Langway. Langway had Larry Murphy and Scott Stevens as fellow defencemen on that Washington team, but the voters were adamant he was the best D-man in the league. I would love someone to go through every Capitals game that season to see what the data available today would show us. It would be interesting to see and compare how Langway and Coffey impacted the game. hockey-reference.com has Langway with a 1.2 OPS (offensive point share) and 6.3 DPS (defensive point share), while Coffey had a 9.9 OPS and 4.3 DPS.

Coffey did win in 1985, 1986 and 1995, Bourque won in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991 and 1994, while Chris Chelios won in 1989 and 1993, and Leetch won in 1992. After the outlier voting years for Langway, the voters reverted back and looked at players who contributed on both ends of the ice.

In the past 30 years, we’ve seen the award much more spread out than it was in the previous 25 years. In the 29 seasons the Norris was awarded, we’ve only had four players win multiple times in Nick Lidstrom (7x), Erik Karlsson (3x), Duncan Keith (2x) and Cale Makar (2x). The other winners include Chelios, Leetch, Rob Blake, Al MacInnis, Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Zdeno Chara, PK Subban, Drew Doughty, Brent Burns, Victor Hedman, Mark Giordano, Roman Josi, Adam Fox and Quinn Hughes.

LOOK AT RECENT WINNERS…

Here is a look at the winners over the past three decades:

1996: Chelios was fourth in points with 72 and trailed Coffey, Bourque and Leetch. Chelios won with 408 votes to Bourque’s 403. Bourque had one more first-place vote (23-22), but Chelios had three more second-place votes (19-16). It was incredibly close, and Chelios had 10 fewer points than........

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