When it comes to the Norris Trophy voting for the NHL's best defenseman, Charlie McAvoy is somewhere inside the Top 10 when it comes to voting. However, that was not the case in 2025-26 for one of the Boston Bruins' top players.
Early this spring, the NHL released the finalists for the award, with Zach Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche, and Rasmus Dahlin of the Buffalo Sabres as the top 3. That wasn't surprising.
However, when the final votes were released on Tuesday morning, McAvoy finished 13th in voting after collecting one fourth-place vote and three fifth-place votes. However, the lack of votes was understandable after the 2025-26 season, the former Boston University standout had.
Norris Trophy voting results paint a painful picture for Bruins Charlie McAvoy
After the votes were totaled, Werenski ran away with the award with 1,589 points, with Makar second with 1,191 points. Dahlin was a distant third with 657 points. Some eye-opening takeaways from the voting showed Quinn Hughes of the Minnesota Wild receiving just 282 points and finishing seventh. Anyway, as far as McAvoy goes, it wasn't surprising where he ended up.
McAvoy saw his 2024-25 season cut short to 50 games after he suffered an injury in the 4 Nations Face-Off. This season, his body took another beating. In November, he took a redirected shot in the face, which led to a broken jaw. He missed some time and came back before the Olympic Break. In the game before that, he took an elbow to the face from Sandis Vilmanis of the Florida Panthers. He returned to the game and luckily didn't miss any time.
McAvoy finished with 11 goals and a career-high 50 assists while averaging 24:23 a night. The 50 apples and 61 points were both career highs for the right-shot blueliner.
After two injury-related seasons, look for McAvoy to have a bounce-back 2026-27 season. He'll have to sit out the first six games of next season after receiving a six-game suspension for his slash on Buffalo Sabres forward Zach Benson in Game 6 of their first-round series loss. The four votes are a painful reminder of just how painful the season McAvoy had.
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