Edmonton Oilers star defenceman Evan Bouchard continues to hit new heights, reaching the 90 point mark for the first time in his NHL career.
Through his play in recent seasons, Bouchard has pushed himself into an elite category as one of the NHL's top offensive defencemen and powerplay quarterbacks. His play this season has pushed him even further, as one of the league's best defenders overall.
This year, he has put himself firmly into the Norris Trophy conversation with his play and currently leads all defencemen in points by over 10. The next closest is Columbus Blue Jackets blueliner, Zach Werenski.
Evan Bouchard is having a career year
During Wednesday night's matchup against the San Jose Sharks, Bouchard reached an incredible milestone, hitting and surpassing 90 points. Although unlikely, he does still have the potential to reach an even cooler milestone and score 100 points this season.
Looking at recent Norris Trophy calibre seasons, Erik Karlsson hit the 100 point feat en route to his Norris Trophy victory in the 2022-23 season. However, both Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar won in 2024 and 2025, respectively, amassing 92 points both seasons. Makar also won in 2022 and failed to even reach 90 points.
Although point production should not be the only metric used to judge whether or not a defenceman is worthy of winning the Norris Trophy but the skill level required to accomplish this is deserving of great recognition. If Bouchard is able to capture the Norris, it would be just the third time an Oilers defenceman has won the award with Paul Coffey winning in back-to-back seasons in 1984-85 and 1985-86.
Bouchard proving doubters wrong
In addition to his raw production, he has also made strides to improce his defensive play, something that many used as a knock against him. Using JFresh and Patrick Bacon's analytics cards, Bouchard has been at least slightly above league average defensively in two of the past three seasons. Something that many people do not understand.
6 points (3G 3A) for Evan Bouchard tonight. #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/FSvifOl9Kk
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) January 25, 2026
There is a large contingent of hockey fans who will see Bouchard make a bad giveaway or a lazy backcheck and use that five-second clip to summarize his entire body of work in his own end. However, that is not the case, it is a classic example of a defensive defenceman who holds possession of the puck consistently and therefore gives it away more than others.
It is an issue that is not unique to Bouchard but it is a pervasive belief when discussing the blueliner, undeservedly so. The Oilers number one defenceman deserves Norris Trophy votes this season at the very least.