COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski is one of three finalists for the James Norris Memorial Trophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Werenski’s nomination is for the second consecutive campaign for the award, which is given annually to the NHL’s top defensive player\u00a0
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Other finalists for the 2025-2026 campaign are Cale Makar, Colorado, and Rasmus Dahlin, Buffalo
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Werenski registered 22 goals and 59 assists for 81 points; including 18-41-59 at even strength with 260 shots on goal and +7 plus\/minus rating on 26:37 of ice time in 75 games with the Blue Jackets<\/p>\n
Werenski’s nomination is for the second consecutive campaign for the award, which is given annually to the NHL’s top defensive player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-around ability in the position.<\/p>\n
Other finalists for the 2025-2026 campaign are Cale Makar, Colorado, and Rasmus Dahlin, Buffalo. Werenski finished second in voting for the award last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 28-years-old, Werenski registered 22 goals and 59 assists for 81 points; including 18-41-59 at even strength with 260 shots on goal and +7 plus\/minus rating on 26:37 of ice time in 75 games with the Blue Jackets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He finished second in the NHL in average ice time, 14th-T in even-strength points and 15th in multi-point efforts (26)<\/p>\n
Werenski led Columbus in assits, points, points-per-game, multi-point efforts and shots on goal and finished third in goals. He set a new single-season club record for multi-point outings and tied the franchise mark for assists for the second consecutive season.<\/p>\n
He previously set single-season club records for defensemen with 23-59-82 in 81 contests in 2024-25 and is the fifth U.S.-born defenseman in NHL history to record multiple 80-point campaigns.<\/p>\n
Werenski is the franchise’s all-time leader in assists and ranks second in points, third in games played, fourth in shots on goal and fifth in goals with 135-330-465 and 1,846 shots in 642 career game sin 10 NHL seasons with the Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
The James Norris Memorial Trophy was first presented in 1953-54 by the children of the late James Norris in memory of the former owner-president of the Detroit Red Wings. Nominees are voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association at the end of the regular season with the top three vote-getters designated as finalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski is one of three finalists for the James Norris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[1249,2100,3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,5638,40,4,5188,5639,43,1953],"class_list":["post-569317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-blue-jackets","tag-bluejackets","tag-columbus","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-columbusbluejackets","tag-hockey","tag-madison-macarthur","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-sports","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116534850570686794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}