Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Mike Green.

Canada didn't trust Mike Green's play in his own zone enough to include him amongst the seven defencemen chosen to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Now we ask, is Green, the NHL's highest scoring defenceman this season, good enough to be named winner of the Norris Trophy as the best defender in the league?

This season there really is no runaway leader for the Norris, so it will likely come down to personal preference for members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association who are charged with choosing the Norris winner.

With 17 goals and 71 points in 70 games, Green certainly has the offensive credentials. Not only that, his plus-33 is second best in the NHL amongst defenceman. Only teammate Jeff Schultz's plus-37 is better. How much of a defensive liability can you really be at plus-33?

Also boding well for Green is the fact he also led the NHL in scoring among defencemen last season, with a whopping 31 goals and 73 points in 68 games. Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins edged Green out for the Norris Trophy last season, but it is easy to imagine voters looking at Green's body of work over two seasons and deciding he has earned the honor this year.

Still, there is that nagging notion that if he wasn't good enough to play for Team Canada, how can he be good enough to claim a major award in the same season?

Another way of looking at it is; if Green had been included on Team Canada's defence, would Canada have not won the gold medal? Of course there is no way of knowing that, but let's just say he was put on the team in place of Chicago's Brent Seabrook, who played the least amount of time among Canada's defenders in Vancouver, there is every chance Canada would have emerged as the championship team.

Green's stiffest competition, no doubt, could come from four defenders who played for Team Canada - Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks, Chris Pronger of the Philadelphia Flyers, Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings and Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators.

Keith has emerged the past two seasons as one of the NHL's most complete defencemen. His 13 goals and 66 points thus far are both career highs and he has a physical element to his game that Green does not possess. Keith was arguably Canada's best defenceman at the Olympics and surely his performance in Vancouver could sway voters of the Norris Trophy in his direction.

Pronger didn't have a great Olympic tournament, but part of the reason was Canada's coaching staff had him penciled in as the sixth or seventh defender at the start of the tournament. A player who normally logs upwards of 28 minutes a game in the NHL started the tournament off with less than 13 minutes. However, a youth movement that looked good on paper didn't translate so well on the ice and with each passing game the coaching staff leaned more heavily on Pronger to the point where, in the gold medal game, he led all team Canada skaters in minutes played and was one of the big reasons why Canada edged Team USA in overtime.

The Flyers have underachieved this season, but nobody is pointing the finger at Pronger as a cause for the team's inconsistent play. He is fifth among defenceman in scoring with 10 goals and 53 points (plus-23) in 76 games. With what he has had to work with this season, this might be one of Pronger's best years in the NHL.

Weber has slipped to 19th in scoring amongst NHL defencemen, but consider what he is up against. His Predators are a defence-first team with no bona fide scoring threats up front, so he rarely gets the opportunity to concentrate on offence. That said, he puts up decent numbers (14 goals and 39 points in 72 games) and also plays a very physical game.

Doughty has future Norris Trophy winner written all over him, but at 20 years old, he might be a year or two away. Also, the fact he plays out west and many of the voters don't take the opportunity to watch him on a regular basis, it could hurt his chances this year. There is no denying Doughty has been one of the best offensive threats from the blue line this season, as his 15 goals and 54 points in 79 games will attest to. Given the fact he captured the fancy of many with his strong play in Vancouver, he should garner lots of interest in the voting booth.

Still, it's hard to ignore a player such as Green who has led the league in scoring as a defenceman two years running, even if his game didn't capture the fancy of the Olympic team.