Cale Makar won the Norris Trophy for the 2024-25 season, and ran away with it by capturing 1,861 voting points while Adam Fox finished 12th with just 9 voting points.
How Cale Makar won the Norris. pic.twitter.com/MUqJikP1C3
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) June 11, 2025
Fox's 12th place finish is quite embarrassing, because there is no way he was only the league's 12th best defenseman this season. This likely was a case of perception outweighing performance, and his candidacy was likely hurt by the fact the New York Rangers had one of their worst seasons in recent memory. It also seems like a lot of people put stock in the 4 Nations Face-Off, and dinged Fox for having an underwhelming performance. There's also probably voters who looked at the fact that Makar scored 30 goals and almost had 100 points and that was more than enough to crown him.
The odds of Fox winning the trophy this season were very slim, and it also seemed unlikely that he would be a finalist based on the impressive season Zach Werenski was having for a Columbus Blue Jackets team that almost made the playoffs. Hughes was another name that had been in the mix for most of the year, so that meant there was only one spot for a defender from the Eastern Conference.
No matter how you slice it, Fox was one of the best defensemen in the league this season, and at worst should have finished in the top five. The numbers are clear on this, and it seems that the negative perception about him that's been vocalized by fans was something that was actualized by award voters. Even though you can make a case that Fox should have won the award, this isn't what this story is about. It's about him having a very strong statistical season, better than or on par with his peers, but still finishing way behind them.
With that said, here's one look at how Fox graded this season compared to Makar who won the award, Werenski the runner up, and third place finalist Quinn Hughes via Hockeyviz.com's synthetic goals metric.
Fox posted a +14.5 sG this season, Hughes was worth +12.2 sG, Werenski had a +5.9 sG rating, and Makar finished +4.5 in sG. This is just one metric, but it is abundantly clear that in terms of 5v5 offense, everyone but Makar had a dominant season in this regard.
Fox led the way with a performance that was 21% better than league average, Werenski was slightly behind him at +16%, then came Hughes at +13%, and last was Makar who was just 1% better than league average.
In terms of 5v5 defensive impact, Fox was 9% better than league average, Hughes was 8% better, Makar was 4% better, and Werenski was 4% worse than league average. In terms of special teams of offense on the power play and defense on the penalty kill, Fox has a net rating of 4%, Hughes came in at 3%, Werenski came in 2% worse, and Makar was 4% worse.
This wasn't the only model that evaluated defensive play this season, and the results from Evolving-Hockey also support the notion that Fox was disrespected by the voters. For starters, Makar finished in 98th percentile of all defensemen this season, was 98th percentile for offensive rating, and 37th in defensive rating.
His actual performance, listed on the charts here as GAR, were below his expected results, labelled right next to it as xGAR, so you can argue that if he were to play the 2024-25 season over again he might have graded out in a more productive way.
Werenski graded out as a 96th percentile defenseman this season, 98th in offense, and 34th percentile in defense. He was very much an "all gas, no breaks" player this season and had minimal impact on special teams.
Hughes finished in third place and was a 99th percentile defenseman this season, and was at the top of the charts for offensive impact and also had a respectable defensive impact finishing in the 68th percentile. He had an impressive impact at 5v5 offensively, and his defensive impact was positive but not nearly as good as expected. Hughes also was a quality contributor offensively on the power play.
Last, and certainly not least, was Fox who finished the season in the 98th percentile of all defensemen. He was in the 97th percentile for offense, and the 71st percentile for defense which was better than any of the actual finalists.
These charts are generated using data which can be found on Evolving-Hockey.com, and here's a quick summary for the EV (even strength) offense and defensive numbers. Here's how each defender finished the season in terms of goals for percentage, Corsi For percentage, and expected goals for percentage.
- Adam Fox: 58.19 GF% | 55.95 CF% | 55.32 xGF%
- Cale Makar: 59.05 GF% | 56.24 CF% | 55.61 xGF%.
- Quinn Hughes: 53.36 GF% | 55.72 CF% | 53.17 xGF%.
- Zach Werenski: 57.18 GF% | 52.23 CF% |53.31 xGF%
Digging a little deeper looking at the on-ice actual goals for and against here's how each defender performed.
- The Rangers scored 3.19 goals per 60 minutes when Fox was on the ice, and conceded just 2.29 per 60 minutes.
- For Colorado, the Avalanche scored 3.02 goals per 60 minutes when Makar was on the ice, and conceded just 2.09 per 60 minutes.
- The Canucks scored 2.86 goals per 60 minutes when Hughes was on the ice, and allowed 2.5 goals per 60 minutes against.
- Columbus generated 3 goals per 60 minutes with Werenski on the ice, and allowed 2.25 goals against per 60 minutes.
The reason I point this out is because ultimately this is an award that is given to a defenseman, and the defensive side of the game is something that's important. There certainly are merits to rewarding an exemplary offensive output, because if you are generating offense that means the opposition doesn't have the puck, but the defensive side of the game matters too. Makar was .20 better in terms of the goals surrendered, but Fox was .17 better in goals generated. This trade-off resulted in .29 difference between the two in GF%, a stat in which Fox has a solid performance.
Ultimately I think Makar's amazing offensive season gave a lot of voters cover to crown him. While impressive, I don't think when you look at the entire picture it was enough to hand him the award.
Makar had 92 points in 80 games, Werenski had 82 points in 81 games, Hughes had 67 points in 68 games, Fox had 61 points in 74 games. Laid out in this manner, it is easy to see how offense may have played a role in voting. If you just looked at 5v5 performance, Werenski had 48 points, Makar had 42, Hughes had 35, and Fox had 33. That represents a spread of just 15 points from highest to least of this grouping which is pretty small all things considered.
Fox already has a Norris Trophy in his awards cabinet, he arguably should have a second one if not for the voters handing it to Erik Karlsson for simply scoring 101 points during the 2022-23 season. This year is just another example of Fox being a bit of an enigma in that he's judge more harshly than his peers. He also is a defender who doesn't have the flashiest of games, and instead plays a steady brand of hockey that doesn't lend itself to being features on fan cams and highlight reels.
A 12th place finish isn't something that will likely bother him, but that doesn't make it any less absurd that voters looked at his numbers and decided he was only worthy of one third-place vote, and four fifth-place votes. Maybe Fox will generate more offense next year in Mike Sullivan's system next season, a system that should make life a little easier for him. Getting to 80 points might be what Fox needs to do in order to get the attention of voters, but for now he will somehow remain one of the league's most underrated elite players, a notion that seems like a contradiction but is validated by a 12th place Norris finish despite an exemplary performance this season.