For fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, there haven’t been a lot of opportunities for them to watch Tyson Barrie play in the past couple of years, so he might surprise some people with his abilities.
In fact, it sounds like Barrie has counted on surprising people in Canada for a long time.
His longtime teammate Erik Johnson said goodbye on Instagram and he left a little nugget at the end of his message that should excite Leafs fans. Apparently he “always said [he] played in Canada, [he’d] win the Norris.”
To his credit, 4 of the last 8 norris trophy winners have been from Canada, which would be slightly disproportionate to the amount of teams in the league. However, if you look a little deeper, that run is preceded by a 21 year drought of the Norris coming to Canada. Erik Karlsson broke that drought in 2011-12. The player on a Canadian team to win it before him? Chris Chelios in 1988-89.
So, what might really help Barrie is staying healthy.
Barrie has put up a lot of points with the Colorado avalanche, but has missed between 4 and 14 games in each of the last four seasons. If he can stay healthy with the Leafs, rack up points on the top power play and eat a lot of minutes on the top unit, he could definitely have a chance at the Norris.
We’re not sure he’s been robbed in the past though… Canada just had some pretty good defenceman in recent years.
