2010-11 Norris Trophy Revisit

[Felidae]

A very close and controversial last Norris win for Lidstrom. Voting wise, i believe its the closest Norris race between 3 candidates (and possibly of any award?).

Here is their vote placements

Lidstrom
1st - 35
2nd - 25
3rd - 35

Weber
1st - 32
2nd - 41
3rd - 14

Chara
1st - 33
2nd - 24
3rd - 24

Even lubomir visnovsky got a lot more support than your typical 4th place finish

1st - 20
2nd - 20
3rd - 24


I think it's pretty much consensus on here that Lidstrom shouldn't have won, but I hear less about who was more deserving between Weber and Chara. Or maybe someone else was deserving? Players like Kris Letang, Drew Doughty and Duncan Keith had pretty solid seasons despite getting no recognition this year. Curious what everyone thinks.

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[JackSlater]

I remember at the time thinking that Weber should win, so him I guess. Really was a weak year with no standout though, which made it easier to give Lidstrom the career achievement Norris. Assuming that the players are listed in order of their Norris voting in the poll, Doughty really should have been in the top four. Ehrhoff could have been a bit higher too.

 

[norrisnick]

I still contend that if the '09 and '11 results were reversed, no one would say peep. Slow first month had the writers (voters) tripping over themselves to anoint someone else as the king of the Norris. By the end of the season Lidstrom had proven them wrong, but they went with it anyway and then felt compelled to "correct" it 2 years later.

 

[JackSlater]

I still contend that if the '09 and '11 results were reversed, no one would say peep. Slow first month had the writers (voters) tripping over themselves to anoint someone else as the king of the Norris. By the end of the season Lidstrom had proven them wrong, but they went with it anyway and then felt compelled to "correct" it 2 years later.

I don't think that there was any sense that Lidstrom was so robbed in 2009 that they had to make up for it. I do think that they were very open to going with someone else in 2009 though, just look at Green almost getting the trophy that year. I'll butterfly effect things a little bit and suggest that it's possible that if Pronger doesn't get injured in 2007 and miss ~15 games he wins that Norris, which looked very likely, and then in 2009 Lidstrom may have gotten the Norris since thre would be less voter fatigue, and then yes Chara probably gets the 2011 Norris because he didn't have one to that point. That is a better reflection of hockey over that span than what happened with the actual voting.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

I know its popular to point to this as Weber's missed year but IMO it should've gone to Chara. He did the heavy lifting for the team with 53.4% ES d zone starts and 3 min a game on the PK and had the best ESGA among the 3 by a decent margin (50 vs 63 vs 67).

I know +/- is a flawed stat, but there's no way the Norris winner should be -2 on a 104 point, division winning team. There were 4 defenders on his own team with a better +/- including his D partner. It's a blatant "retirement gold watch" award

 

[Michael Farkas]

Found my old notes, this was my top 6:
Chara, Weber, Lidstrom, Visnovsky, Enstrom, Yandle are my top six I think.