The Panther
Registered User
It's true. But there's an easy way to correct that -- eliminate the Norris trophy from existence!it is weird to me that defencemen, the best of which probably influence more of the game than stars of any other position, are so chronically underrepresented in MVP voting. by definition, they should be dominating the hart trophy.
Doing so would probably result in a Dman winning the Hart every 2nd or 3rd season.
Yes, 12 out of 54 Conn Smythes (22%) have gone to Dmen, and another 17 (31%) have gone to goalies. It means that only 47% of Conn Smythes have gone to forwards.it’s also odd that dmen are less underrepresented in conn smythe voting.
Conversely, only 13 of 99 Hart trophies (13%) have been awarded to D, while 78 (79%) have gone to forwards. And only 4 (!) of the 69 Harts have been awarded to Dmen (Orr x 3; Pronger x 1) since the Norris was first awarded in 1954 -- that's a miserable 5.7% while the Norris has existed. It's a massive discrepancy.
It's quite obvious, then, that since 1953-54, most NHL award voters have placed MVP-type Dmen into the "Norris" category while prioritizing forwards for the Hart.