Norris No-Brainer: The Clear Case for Zdeno Chara Winning the Norris Trophy

The NHL recently named the three nominees for the 2010-2011 Norris Trophy as Nashville's Shea Weber, Detroit's soon-to-be 41 year old Nicklas Lidstrom and Boston's Zdeno Chara.

The trophy is awarded to the "defensive player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-around ability in the position." No doubt these three defensemen had the superb all-around game over the rest of the league's blue-liners.

However to me this really is an easy choice as to who should win this honorable award and that man is 6-foot-9 Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins.

A Bruins defenseman has won the award an NHL-record 14 times, which should come as no surprise with the franchise having two of the league's greatest defenseman of all-time in Bobby Orr and Ray Bourque—who have won eight and five times respectively. Easy to say the Bruins have been quite fortunate when it comes to having talented defensemen.

Alright, so Chara isn't nearly as good as either of those guys in my opinion—Orr and Bourque are out of his league as well as any other defenseman in the NHL right now. However, with all due respect to Weber and Lidstrom, neither of them have as WELL-ROUNDED of a game as Big Z. Key word—well-rounded.

Chara posted 14 goals and 30 assists, including eight power-play goals for a team that's power-play would be better served declining the man advantage if it had the option to do so.

He ranked 6th in the league in time on ice per game at 25:26, just six seconds more than Shea Weber's 25:19 with both defenseman averaging roughly 29 shifts a game. Both defensemen have the tough duty of being matched against the oppositions' top offensive lines nightly, and for a guy as huge as Zdeno Chara who goes against wee little speedsters like Brian Gionta and Phil Kessel, that's not easy.

More importantly, Zdeno posted an NHL-best plus-33 plus-minus rating while Weber's rating was just plus seven. And with all due respect to Mr. Lidstrom who had the second most points among defensemen with 62, he had a measly minus two plus-minus rating.

When a defenseman's primary job is his work in the defensive zone fending away the opponents' offensive players and getting the puck out of the zone and into their own possession, a strong indicator is a plus-minus rating.

Luckily for Chara, he has the probable Vezina Trophy winning goalie Tim Thomas playing out of this world in net for him.

I am not taking anything away from Nicklas Lidstrom, who has won the award six times, owning it the past decade as well as being named an All-Star 12 times and not to mention winning four Stanley Cups along the way.

But looking at all Chara does, how great of a season he had and not to mention how feared he is to play against amongst the league's forwards—it's the perfect fit for his second Norris Trophy.

Wonder how the faithful followers of the Bleu, Blanc, et Rouge will feel if Chara does indeed win the Norris? They already boo him the loudest, not to mention they deemed him a "wanted" man in Montreal after the Pacioretty incident—the 9-1-1 lines may be flooded again.