With Dougie Hamilton continuing to improve every season with the Calgary Flames, he’s proving he should be in Norris conversations.
It was an exciting day when the Calgary Flames acquired Dougie Hamilton almost three years ago. And he’s been improving every year. Yet, he never quite makes it into Norris conversations, but he should.
Let me preface this by saying that this isn’t me saying that Dougie should win the Norris or even be in the top three for that matter. But he still deserves to be in those conversations, yet he isn’t. He was tied for first among all defencemen for goals with 17, which is also a career-high for him. But it’s not always about what shows on the scoresheet.
Among all players in the league, Dougie was second in terms of shot attempts at 5on5 with 1702. Brent Burns, who’s in first in that category with 1758, played over 100 minutes more than Dougie at 5on5. He had the second best CF% among all defensemen (min. 600 gp), right after Mark Giordano, with 57.58%. His Rel.CF% was third best among defensemen at 6.65 (Giordano was also first in that category).
This season, the three nominees for the Norris Trophy are Victor Hedman, Drew Doughty, and PK Subban. Again, let me just reiterate that I’m not saying Dougie should win Norris or even be in the top three, but he doesn’t seem to get the same looks as other d-men when he should.
Let’s check out his stats compared to the nominees (everything at 5on5, stats taken from corsica.hockey).
| TOI | CF | CF% | Rel.CF% | OIGF (EV) | OIGF% (EV) | P/60 | P1/60 | |
| Dougie Hamilton | 1424.42 | 1702 | 57.58% | 6.65% | 74 | 46.84% | 1.14 | 0.84 |
| Victor Hedman | 1420.07 | 1464 | 52.23% | 0.38% | 87 | 42.23% | 1.23 | 0.89 |
| Drew Doughty | 1589.15 | 1556 | 52.67% | 4.39% | 93 | 56.36 | 0.91 | 0.53 |
| PK Subban | 1421.02 | 1407 | 51.71% | 0.30% | 76 | 42.70% | 1.06 | 0.89 |
Dougie Hamilton has an insane amount of shot attempts, to put it lightly. It’s also interesting to see that, among some of the top defensemen in the league according to the NHL, Dougie Hamilton is right up there with them. While the Calgary Flames had some issues with offence this season, his on-ice goals-for at even-strength is still quite impressive and is up there with the top guns. With how many goals he’s on the ice for in relation to how many goals the team puts up, again, he’s one of the best.
Seeing the oiGF% and Rel.CF%, it’s clear that Dougie is one of the most important defencemen in relation to the respective team. And in turn, he IS one of the best defencemen in the league.
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Heading into this season, he was ranked as the 16th best defenceman in the league by NHL.com. If he isn’t in the top ten heading into the 2018-19 season, I’ll be incredibly surprised. And it will be yet another jip for the young defenceman.