Quinn Hughes’ Norris snub: The line between honest opinion and bad votes – Hockey writer – Vancouver Canucks

The NHL’s annual awards season is often controversial. Still, this year’s Norris Trophy vote (which Cale Makar won) sparked a particularly sharp conversation when NHL insider Elliotte Friedman joined Math Marchese and Mike Futa for a fan hockey show to discuss the weird Norris Trophy vote. Specifically, seven voters left Vancouver Canucks defensive player Quinn Hughes (Norris finalist), who ranked third overall, completely ridding the vote.

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The conversation started with Marchese without backing off. “They should have taken the ballots away,” he said. “That means you just didn’t look.”

This is not the first time a vote has sparked debate. A few years ago, a voter left Connor McDavid and Auston Matthew to receive it from the Hart Trophy vote. These are not fringe players – they are stars passed down from generation to generation. Giving them altogether not only challenges consensus; it questions whether voters even take the coalition seriously.

For Friedman revealing that his Zach Werenski, Cale Makar and Hughes are his top three, that is, anyone will omit Hughes, the top scorer in the NHL, seems to make sense. Although he found it almost undeniable, Friedman measured it more than his master.

Key issues in this voting discussion

The key question discussed in this section is: When their votes seem to ignore outstanding senior performers like Hughes, will voters be held accountable and even lose their voting privileges?

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This leads to a deeper question: What distinguishes bad votes from irresponsible or self-service votes? Should votes be judged based on their reasoning, or is voter freedom the most important? Finally, where is the line between honest objections and voting for attention? Friedman handled each issue during the conversation.

Friedman fights these tensions. Although he criticized Hughes for excluding some of the votes from certain votes, he ultimately believed that the integrity of the process did not depend on punishing unpopular opinions, but on the ability of voters to reliably explain their choices.

There are bad votes and irresponsible votes

But then Friedman raised a more subtle discussion of the line between bad votes and unethical votes. “I’m frustrated by that,” he admitted. “I think people should be allowed to vote as they want…but I want to say to someone, ‘What are you thinking here?’” He believes that disagreeing with most people is one thing, and the other is submitting a vote that seems to be apart from reality.

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He distinguished between justified objections and self-promoting outliers. Friedman recalls a moment in NBA history when a separate MVP vote was Allen Iverson instead of Shaquille O’Neal, a move not because of its logic, but because it was so good. “If you want to vote for Iverson through Shaq, that’s great,” Friedman said. “But if you want to promote yourself, I don’t like it.”

For him, this is where voters cross the line. This is not to be disconnected from public consensus. It’s about votes that cannot be defended by any reasonable standard, or worse, vote counts designed to attract attention rather than reflecting the actual hockey analysis. For him, that was crossing the line.

Quinn Hughes stands for a worthy defender

Friedman argued that the Hughes case was not one of the opinions. This is one of the basic observations. Hughes led all NHL defensemen to score, and the quarterback scored one of the league’s highest power games and drove on both ends of the ice. Getting him out of Norris’s vote was not only a matter of taste, but also ignoring his season. “For me,” Friedman said, “if you don’t have Hughes in the top five, I don’t agree.”

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Despite this, Friedman no longer advocates for voting overhauls. He acknowledged the subjectivity in reward voting and even accepted the subjectivity. Some voters would favor closing down defenders. Others will weigh the offensive impact more severely. But at least, voters should be able to explain their choices. If you can’t defend your votes beyond “I think”, it’s when the process loses credibility.

Finally, Friedman landed in the middle. He believes that voters should be free to make bold or unpopular choices – but must be maintained by logical and serious standards. “If you want to have an honest vote, people’s votes should not be taken away,” he concluded. “If you’re for something else – to be interesting or to get attention – then I have a problem with that.”