Chris Pronger and Kevin Bieksa disagree on who should win the Norris.

The end of the 2025-26 National Hockey League regular season is rapidly approaching and that means that the league's end of season awards are once again a topic of heated debate.

There is perhaps no award this year that will be more fiercely debated that the James Norris Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the best defenseman across the entire NHL. There are a number of worthy candidates eligible for the award this season, so many in fact that even former NHL defensemen can't seem to agree on who should be the rightful winner.

On Saturday night, former NHL defensemen Chris Pronger and Kevin Bieksa both named their pick for who should win the award, with both men each producing a different name.

"I personally have Rasmus Dahlin one on my list," said Pronger. "I think he's been phenomenal, I love the way he defends, competes so hard, gets under the skin of the other team's best player and he's a talent offensively."

Bieksa however sees it quite differently and made what I can only describe as a truly impassioned speech for why he clearly believes the award should belong to the Colorado Avalanche's Cale Makar once again.

"Cale Makar is the best defenseman in the world," said Bieksa. "He played 73 games this year that's enough to determine he's the best defenseman. He's the number one defenseman on Colorado, offensively and defensively, he's the best defenseman on Team Canada, offensively and defensively, he's going on the ice with a minute left up or down. He's the only defenseman on your list that plays penalty kill, two minutes on average ice time, he's the overall best defenseman."

There are of course a number of defensemen who could also have been included in this debate like Quinn Hughes of the Minnesota Wild or Zach Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets, but both Pronger and Bieksa seemed dead set on their individual picks.

Which former NHL defenseman do you think got this one right? Let me know what you think in the comments.