if the voters were going off of analytics then McAvoy would have been a finalist over Hedman. I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.
Norris voters are wowed by offensive numbers. It has been that way for 20+ years. It seems like you think Hedman was robbed by Fox when the reality is that Hedman was only in the conversation because he put up bigger offensive numbers than McAvoy, and those numbers were largely propped up by the PP.
Its actually always been that way.
The first two winners of the Norris trophy were Red Kelly (1954) and Doug Harvey (1955). Both led defensemen in scoring.
Harvey won two others while leading in scoring.
Pierre Pilote won 3 in a row in the early 60s, twice as the leading scorer.
Of course Bobby Orr won 7 times as the leading scorer.
All 3 years Denis Potvin won the Norris he was the top scoring defenseman. Larry Robinson won in between, and yes, he was the leading scorer.
In the last 4 years the leading scorer for defensemen has not won the Norris. Only one other time did that happen and that was because Paul Coffey was outscoring everyone but not winning the Norris.