There’s a bit of a belief in hockey circles that good things are often followed by bad things. There’s the concept of regression. The notion of a Stanley Cup hangover. The dreaded sophomore slump.
One doesn’t typically hear much about any Norris Trophy hangovers or slumps, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. With that in mind, and with the Vancouver Canucks’ own Quinn Hughes coming off the first Norris Trophy of his career in 2023/24, we thought it might be worthwhile to examine the next seasons of those ten Norris winners who came before Hughes. We’re looking for a trend here, and trying to figure out whether there’s any reason to worry about any sort of comedown for Hughes after an award-winning campaign.
In any case, we can’t deny the fact that Keith won the 2014 Norris through one of the best regular seasons in his career, including a career-high 55 assists and 61 total points in 80 games. Keith did follow that up with a relatively disappointing playoff run in which he only notched 11 points in 19 games as his Blackhawks fell to the Kings in the Western Conference Finals.
The next year, Keith did experience a bit of a post-Norris slump…but only in the regular season. He saw his point totals dip down to just 45 points in 80 games, the lowest per-game rate he’d scored at since his third year in the league.
But then Keith more than made up for it in the playoffs, notching 21 points in 23 games on route to the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy. It’s hard to call that a slump – more like a player who learned to keep more in the tank for the postseason.
Karlsson is the only player with two Norrises on his mantle from the past decade, and they came almost a decade apart. His first, in 2014/15, actually occurred during a bit of a personal slump. Karlsson scored 74 points in 2013/14, then dipped down to 66 in 2014/15, but won the Norris all the same.
In his follow-up 2015/16 campaign, Karlsson went PPG with 82 points in 82 games, the highest totals of his career until that 101 point campaign in 2022/23.
So why did he win the Norris in a down year? Primarily because, in 2014/15, Karlsson added a great deal of defensive competency to what was already an offensively dynamic game, and he was rightly recognized for it.
Either way, still no evidence of a slump to be found here. Kind of the opposite.