Zach Werenski is the king of NHL defenseman for 2026 after putting together a season that earned him the James Norris Memorial Trophy.
A year after finishing second for the award to Colorado Avalanche star Cale Makar in 2025, Werenski put together another outstanding season for the Blue Jackets that pushed him into the top spot among voters in the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
The results were announced June 2 by the NHL, which released the news along with a video of Werenski getting the Trophy in a surprise visit from a camera crew while he and wife, Odette, and their recently born son, Hudson, hosted a family get together.
Werenski’s solid defensive play combined with 81 points on 22 goals and 59 assists in 75 games swayed enough voters to win the Norris, which is awarded annually to the NHL’s top defenseman. Garnering the first Norris Trophy in a 10-year NHL career completes a memorable season for Werenski.
Despite the Blue Jackets stumbling from playoff contention late, Werenski led Columbus in scoring for the second straight year after helping the U.S. men’s hockey team win gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. It was Werenski’s play in overtime of the gold medal game, stealing the puck from Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon and sending it to teammate Jack Hughes, that sparked their golden goal in a 2-1 overtime win.
Months earlier, Werenski also helped the U.S. break a long championship drought in May 2025 at the men’s world championships in Stockholm, Sweden, giving him two international gold medals playing for the U.S. in less than a year’s time. During each celebration, Werenski and his U.S. teammates honored deceased former Blue Jackets star Johnny Gaudreau by displaying his No. 13 jersey.
They took it a step in the Olympic celebration by carrying two of Gaudreau’s children onto the ice and posing with them in their team victory photo. Three months later, Werenski became a father for the first time when his wife, Odette, gave birth to their son, Hudson.
Now, on top of those career and life milestones, Werenski is a first-time recipient of the Norris Trophy, which is named after James E. Norris, a longtime owner of the Detroit Red Wings. That’s a fitting piece of trivia for Werenski, who’s from the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and grew up a Red Wings fan.
The Norris Trophy is one of the NHL’s most prestigious awards and the only one that specifically honors defensemen. Earning a Norris has become a gold standard for inclusion into hockey’s hall of fame, which is starting to feel like a probability for Werenski.
Adding a Stanley Cup championship would all but clinch his inclusion, and Werenski is still in the prime years of his career. He’ll be 29 starting his 11th NHL season, all spent with the Blue Jackets, and there’s a chance he might gain the captain’s ‘C’ on his jersey if current captain Boone Jenner doesn’t re-sign as a free agent.
Since the Jackets selected him eighth overall in 2015, Werenski has matured into a homegrown superstar and now the NHL’s top defenseman. That’s why former GM Jarmo Kekalainen, who drafted him, made Werenski the Blue Jackets’ top defenseman and highest-paid player July 29, 2021, by signing him to a six-year contract worth $59.5 million.
That deal, which has two seasons left, was announced about a month after Kekalainen traded Werenski’s former defense partner, Seth Jones, to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Jackets received an enticing return package that allowed them to draft forward Cole Sillinger 12th overall in 2021 and defenseman David Jiricek sixth overall in 2022, but the deal also made Werenski their top defenseman.
Aside from injuries that limited his availability for two years (2021-2023), Werenski has capitalized on the opportunity to play a huge role. In the past two seasons combined, he ranks second among all NHL defensemen in points [163], third in goals [45], fifth in assists [118], first in shots [558] and second in ice time [26:41].
He also tops every all-time defensive scoring record for the Blue Jackets by sitting first in points [465], goals [135], assists [330] and power-play goals [29] while also leading in games played [642] by defensemen.
Unlike many of his blue-line peers around the NHL, though, Werenski has skated with numerous partners on the Blue Jackets’ top defensive pairing since Jones left. The past two years, it’s been Dante Fabbro for most of 2024-25 followed by a combination of Damon Severson, Ivan Provorov, Denton Mateychuk and Fabbro this past season.
Unfazed by the rotation, Werenski simply plugged along for another remarkable campaign that finished with a coveted NHL trophy.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets star Zach Werenski wins Norris Trophy
Reporting by Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
