Canucks defenceman Quinn Hughes picks up 30 Norris Trophy votes at 2023 NHL awards

Quinn Hughes got some recognition for his stellar 2022-23 campaign.

In his fourth full season, the 23-year-old Vancouver Canucks blueliner set career highs in numerous statistical categories, including assists and points while maintaining a strong level of defensive play all season long. He finished his season with 76 points in 78 games — two shy of a point-per-game pace.

Nonetheless, Hughes’ season didn’t go unnoticed by members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association, 196 of whom voted on the Norris Trophy.

Hughes picked up 101 points among voters in the form of 1 first-place vote, 2 second-place votes, 10 third-place votes, 5 fourth-place votes, and 12 fifth-place votes. Unsurprisingly, Karlsson cleaned up, garnering 123 first-place votes and a whopping 1585 points off of 192 total votes.

Here’s the full voting breakdown:

Back in May when the Norris Trophy finalists were announced, Lachlan Irvine analyzed Hughes’ season against that of the three defencemen who were named finalists for the award. In that article, Lachlan mentioned that on top of finishing second to only this year’s winner Erik Karlsson in points, Hughes also suppressed shots and chances against at a better rate than both Karlsson and Adam Fox. Lachlan mentioned all this and more, and you can read the full article here.

There was certainly a case to be made for Hughes to be a top three finalist for this year’s award, but as is the case with many awards, they’re largely based on reputation. If Hughes can repeat or improve on his performance from this past season in 2023-24, his reputation as one of the game’s elite defenders will begin to grow, and the number of votes year over year should do the same.