Erik Karlsson is already walking out of Las Vegas a winner.
The Ottawa Senators defenseman signed a seven-year contract extension with the team on Wednesday, locking up a key cog for a team that surprised by making the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season and is only poised to grow in the future, with a minor-league system ranked fifth by The Hockey News in its "Future Watch" issue.
The question for Wednesday, though, is whether he'll walk away with the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman, as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association and presented at the 2012 NHL Awards Show at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas. The 22-year-old Swede is one of three defensemen up for the award, along with Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins and Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators. Here's SWR's take on who should and will win the award.
Should Win: Weber. Karlsson's prolific scoring is certainly to be praised, but the youngster still has to become more solid in his own end before he can be considered the game's best defenseman. Chara is a former winner of the award, a great leader and one of the NHL's most feared players, but he doesn't have the same kind of offensive talent as Weber. Weber does it all for the Preds, who have relied on him and partner-in-crime Ryan Suter to set the tone for a team that is short on bigtime scorers.
Will Win: Go with Weber here. Chara can certainly win it again, as the Bruins were one of the top teams in the East this season and made a respectable run at defending the Stanley Cup they won last year against Vancouver, but Weber was "the man" for a Nashville team that reached the conference semifinals for just the second time in franchise history.
