Darren Raddysh wasn’t just one of the best defenders on the Tampa Bay Lightning, he ended up, at least in the eyes of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, as one of the best defensemen in the NHL. On Tuesday, the league announced that Zach Werenski won the award, his first, and released the final vote tallies. Raddysh finished with 14 total votes broken down by 0 first-place votes, 0 second-place votes, 1 third-place vote, 2 fourth-place votes, and 3 fifth-place votes. That tied him with rookie Matthew Schaefer.
The Lightning’s leader in points from the blueline finished the season with a career-high 70 points (22 goals, 48 assists) in 73 games. His 22 goals set a franchise record and was the third highest total in the league behind Jakob Chychrun (who received 0 vote despite a 60-point season) and Schaefer. Raddysh was the league’s top goal-scorer from the blueline with 10 power play goals.
After a couple of seasons with the Lightning where he shuffled up and down the line-up, the 30-year-old Raddysh found a home on the top pairing with J.J. Moser, and on the top power play unit as Victor Hedman was in-and-out of the line-up due to injuries. His bomb of a shot from the point proved a useful weapon for the Lightning (no one in the league was in the neighborhood of his 96 shots that measured between 90 and 100 MPH) especially with Nikita Kucherov feeding him one-timers from the top of the right circle.
Given the chance to play top minutes, Raddysh took full advantage of his opportunity and earned his keep. Ensconced on the right-side of the ice he posted a career-high 23:26 of ice time and unleashed 212 shots, which is roughly equal to the total he had in the two previous seasons combined. More importantly, he was able to put his shot on net more often. In his previous two seasons only 39% of the shot attempts he took made it on net. In 2025-26 that percentage increased to 46%, and of the 212 he put on net, 10.4% found the back of the net. That is definitely one way to quadruple your yearly goal totals.
While Raddysh is never going to be confused with Ryan McDonah in terms of being a shutdown defensemen, his actual defending was perfectly okay this year. In fact, due to the Lightning’s constant addiction to give up odd-skater rushes on the power play, Raddysh became one of the best blueliners at shutting down short-handed two-on-one rushes. He has an excellent sense of timing when it comes to dropping down on the ice to block passing lanes.
The chemistry he had with J.J. Moser was solid as well. The pairing held teams to a 2.33 xGA while they were on the ice, which was in the same range as McDonagh and Erik Cernak’s 2.24 xGA number at 5v5. (who had Cernak and Charle-Edouard D’Astous being the team leaders at 1.74 xGA?). Moser’s ability to be slightly better than good at just about everything on the ice helped make up for some of Raddysh’s lack of footspeed in his own zone, but on the same token, Raddysh’s offensive abilities drew a lot of attention from his partner in the opponent’s zone and allowed the Swiss national to have one of his better seasons.
[Editor’s rant] Look, we know this is an award that rewards offense more than defense even though it’s nominally a “defensive” award, but the fact that Moser didn’t even get a token fifth-place vote is absurd. The guy was the definition of a solid all-round defenseman this year. They really need to add another award for shutdown defensemen. [End rant]
As anyone who has come within a whisper of a conversation about the Tampa Bay Lightning’s offseason knows, what to do with Darren Raddysh is the number one point of discussion for the next 29 days. This career season came at an excellent time for his financial advisor as Raddysh’s current contract, one of the best values in the league with a cap hit of $975,000, expires on June 30th. He’s not only going to be an unrestricted free agent, but probably a top-three UFA overall in the NHL this summer.
Evolving Hockey has him pegged at a 7-year, $8.07 AAV projection this summer if he hits the open market. That is…well, that is nice work if you can get it. Oddly enough, their algorithms spit out a 3-year, $6.9 million contract if the parameters are changed to having him signing with the Lightning. That would be a much more manageable deal for the Lightning, who might have a bit of cap room to play with this year, but also have an extension for Nikita Kucherov looming in a year’s time.
If he ends up with another organization (which the Raw Charge computer puts at a 62.4% chance of happening) that leaves a pretty big hole at the top of the defensive unit. They have someone who shoots the puck almost as hard in Victor Hedman, but he is a left-handed shot, which doesn’t play as well with Kucherov’s passing skills. Also, it’s kind of nice if you have the option of throwing two players on the ice that can crank up heaters from the blueline.
No matter what happens in a couple of weeks, Darren Raddysh had a memorable season for the Tampa Bay Lightning and it’s nice to see him rewarded with a little bit of love from the PHWA. Oh, and he had an absolute banger of a t-shirt created over at BreakingT. That’s even better than some dusty trophy from the league.
As for Werenski, it was a pretty solid win as he finished with 113 first place votes and 1,589 points. Cale Makar finished second and Rasmus Dahlin was third. It’s Werenski’s first career Norris Trophy and the league surprised him at what he thought was a backyard barbecue video shoot for new dads in the NHL (Hunter, the Werenski’s first child, was born two-and-a-half weeks ago).
Final Norris Trophy Voting Totals
