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Why Mark Giordano Deserves the Norris

Mathematically proving that Mark Giordano is better than or at least on the same level as the recently announced Norris nominees

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Courtesy of Wikipedia the Norris Trophy is “awarded annually to the National Hockey League‘s top “defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position”.

I, like many of you, recently saw the Norris Trophy nominees announced and I was absolutely flabbergasted that Mark Giordano didn’t get a nomination. Mark Giordano first of all managed career highs in Goals (21), Total Points (56), and Shots on Goal (212). He matched career highs in Games Played (82), was 2 points short of his career high assist total of 37 last season, he managed a 9.9% shot conversion rate, good for second highest of his career tying his 2010-2011 campaign, and included a whopping 9 goals on the dreadfully bad Flames power play.

He did all of this while he and T.J. Brodie played against the stiffest competition opposing teams had to offer. The nominees? Erik Karlsson, Drew Doughty, and Brent Burns. Via Own The Puck I will be directly comparing Mark Giordano to the aforementioned Norris Trophy nominees with their innovative and informative HERO (Horizontal Evaluative Ranking Optics) Charts.

First up, Erik Karlsson

Here we see the bar graphs showing that while Karlsson is marginally better than Giordano on the offensive side of the puck, Giordano is clearly the better option when it comes to actual defensive play. While Karlsson is still a top pairing defender offensively, when it comes to shot suppression, he doesn't measure up to Giordano and when it comes to goal suppression he doesn't even measure up to bottom pairing defenders.

Next, Drew Doughty

I don't think there's too much more I can say about this comparison. Mark Giordano is simply better. Everywhere. On a worse team. Amazing.

Lastly, Brent Burns

Once again, Mark Giordano proves to be the better defensive player while keeping pace on the offensive end. Shots against and goals against, Brent Burns falls miserably short.

For my money, Mark Giordano is one of the top 3 all around best defensemen in the League today and as these charts show, has been one of the best defensemen over the last 3 seasons period.

What we are looking at here is a flat out robbery.

by Matthew Granlund