Zach Werenski won the Norris Trophy on June 2, 2026, giving the Columbus Blue Jackets a major individual honor for a player who spent the season driving their offense from the blue line. The NHL’s award for the defenseman judged to have the greatest all-around ability went to Werenski after a 2025-26 campaign in which he scored 22 goals and finished with 81 points in 75 games.
The 28-year-old was not simply productive for a defenseman. He led Columbus in assists, points and points per game, and he finished third on the club in goals, a rare blend that helped him pull in 113 first-place votes, 48 second-place votes and 16 third-place votes for 1,589 points in the Professional Hockey Writers Association poll. He was also a top-five choice on 194 of 198 ballots, a broad margin that matched the kind of season that usually ends with hardware.
That level of support mattered because the race was not a one-player formality. Colorado’s Cale Makar was the only other defenseman to clear the 1,000-point mark in the voting, while Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin finished third with 13 first-place votes and 657 points. Marcus Antonelli put it plainly: it was no surprise Werenski won, saying he had been the favorite and that the award went to the deserving player, even while noting he would have slotted the Columbus defenseman third on his own ballot.
Werenski’s win also adds him to a short American list. He joined Rod Langway, Chris Chelios, Brian Leetch, Adam Fox and Quinn Hughes as the sixth U.S.-born player to capture the Norris Trophy, and he became the seventh player in Blue Jackets history to win a major NHL award. The numbers behind the case stretch beyond one season, too: after posting 82 points in 2024-25, Werenski became the fifth U.S.-born defenseman in league history with multiple 80-point campaigns and only the third to do it in consecutive seasons.
His path has stayed in Columbus since the franchise took him eighth overall in 2015. Werenski spent his post-draft season at the University of Michigan, where he scored 36 points in 36 games, then moved into the NHL and has played his entire career for the Blue Jackets. He is set to enter the fifth season of the six-year, $57.5 million contract he signed in July 2021, with the latest recognition arriving just as that prime stretch continues. For Columbus, the award is not a finish line. It is another sign that its longest-running star defenseman is still building a case as one of the league’s defining players at his position.
