Adam wrote on Wed, 11 March 2026 11:24

Kr55 wrote on Wed, 11 March 2026 11:12 Bouch is having a crazy season after a bad first 2 weeks. None of our forwards even make this list. I bet our media guys will still be hesitant to give him Norris votes though. When Bouch hit 82 points and +34 a couple seasons ago, almost all our media guys gave 100% credit to Ekholm. They put Ekholm on their Norris ballots (Spector, Matheson, Daniel Nugent-Bowman) and left Bouch completely off it. NHL put this on twitter today: Still no respect - even as he runs away with the defencemen scoring list and has been great at both ends of the rink. All anyone can remember is a couple of giveaway highlights apparently... 16 writers and 19 points means that Bouchard was FIFTH on most ballots, and potentially left off completely on some.

Hughes is allowed to just completely quit on his team for half a season to force a trade and still be 3rd. Lots of Hughes highlights in Vancouver this year of him controller disconnecting and letting guys just skate by him to score. I'm sure no one cares though.

The standard for Bouch remains insanely high. And it's probably even higher with Oilers media than it is with the rest of the league. Our media will never go to bat and promote him, while most other media are complete homers pumping their home team players up.

Pretty sure the amount of Flames media guys and definitely Toronto media guys putting Bouch on their 2024 ballots was higher than Oilers media. Oilers media spent the entire year selling that anyhting good Bouch did was purely a product of Ekholm, and everything bad that happened was all Bouch.

[Updated on: Wed, 11 March 2026 11:30]

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000