Harvey Norris Share (in winning years):
55: 34.6%
56: 62.2%
57: 73.6%
58: 22.2%
60: 67.5%
61: 67.9%
62: 53.9%
Lidstrom's Norris Shares:
01: 90.3%
02: 46.7%
03: 67.7%
06: 70.5%
07: 60.8%
08: 94.7%
I think almost every number here is wrong. Here's what I have:
Year | Player | Votes | Max | Percentage
1955 | Doug Harvey | 147 | 180 | 81.7%
1956 | Doug Harvey | 156 | 180 | 86.7%
1957 | Doug Harvey | 159 | 180 | 88.3%
1958 | Doug Harvey | 153 | 180 | 85.0%
1960 | Doug Harvey | 129 | 180 | 71.7%
1961 | Doug Harvey | 162 | 180 | 90.0%
1962 | Doug Harvey | 102 | 180 | 56.7%
Year | Player | Votes | Max | Percentage
2001 | Nicklas Lidstrom | 600 | 620 | 96.8%
2002 | Nicklas Lidstrom | 472 | 620 | 76.1%
2003 | Nicklas Lidstrom | 560 | 620 | 90.3%
2006 | Nicklas Lidstrom | 1152 | 1290 | 89.3%
2007 | Nicklas Lidstrom | 1217 | 1430 | 85.1%
2008 | Nicklas Lidstrom | 1313 | 1340 | 98%
EDIT: you may be using different terminology then me. When I say "Norris share" I'm referring to what percentage of the total available votes a player earned. When Lidstrom earned 600 out of a possible 620 votes in 2001, he got a 96.8% share.
When Hockey Outsider did his Hart and Norris share studies it was eventually deemed to not be a good comparison across different eras. I forget the exact reason and I'm too lazy to look it up, but it had something to do with how the voting was done and how points were assigned (I know the Hart was voted on a mid-season and end of season, was the same true for the Norris?)
For whatever reason, Hart and Norris trophy winners have been taking an increasingly large share of the votes each decade.
From 1990 to 2009 (I'm choosing 1990 as the starting point because Gretzky had a stranglehold on the Hart until 1989), the
average Hart trophy winner earned 87% of the vote. A grand total of one player (in those 19 years) won the Hart with less than 70% of the votes (Chris Pronger in 2000, with a 68% share).
From 1950 to 1967, the
average Hart trophy winner earned just 63% of the vote. Just one player (Stan Mikita in 1967) won the Hart by more than 87%, the average share for the past two decades. Fourteen out of the eighteen players won the Hart won the Hart with less than 70% of the votes - that was commonplace in the Original Six era, but it would be a very weak Hart win these days.
For that reason I concluded that Norris (and Hart) shares are not directly comparable across eras.
Why did this happen? I suspect that, nowadays, most awards votes rely heavily on stats and the accounts of other people in the media. When there were only six teams, the media had a better chance of watching a greater percentage of the league's games, therefore gaining the ability to rely less on statistics and make more informed choices about the best players.