Hutson, Slavin and Heiskanen are names to watch in future Norris Trophy battles

On Wednesday, the NHL announced that Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman for the 2024-2025 season.

In doing so, Makar becomes the 14th defenseman in NHL history to win the award multiple times, and he’ll have the chance to rack up more given that he’s just 26 years old.

But who, aside from his obvious counterpart Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes, is equipped to contend for the award in the coming years?

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and Insider and President of Hockey Content Frank Seravalli discussed why Montreal’s Lane Hutson, Carolina’s Jaccob Slavin and Dallas’ Miro Heiskanen are names to watch moving forward.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Makar, Hughes. It feels like they could go the next 10 years as you kind of alluded to alternating back and forth. When you look at the other guys who got votes this year, who’s sort of the one name you look at and go, “You know what, they might be able to buck the trend one day?”

Frank Seravalli: I think Lane Hutson will be entering the chat. I think Jaccob Slavin, if you want to award the Norris on a different basis of being the best all-around defenseman, is certainly in that category. Werenski could continue to challenge, but one guy that didn’t get any votes this year, in part due to injury, is Miro Heiskanen in Dallas. He’s someone that if he can find the upper echelon of a point total, that I think Miro Heiskanen could win one or multiple Norris Trophies because he’s that good of an all-around player… It’s a gap to close for sure, but if he can add that or find that to his game or has a power play that takes off like a rocket ship with Dallas, look out, because Heiskanen could be in that category for sure.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…