Only six defencemen in the entire history of the NHL have ever scored 100 points in a single season. Bobby Orr did it six times, Paul Coffey did it five times, and then Denis Potvin, Al MacInnis, Brian Leetch, and Erik Karlsson each did it once, spread across different eras and separated by gaps that sometimes stretched over a decade.
After Leetch put up 102 points in 1991–92, the hockey world waited 31 years before Karlsson finally broke the drought in 2022–23. It is, by any measure, one of the rarest individual achievements this sport has to offer, and nine games into the 2026–27 season, Evan Bouchard is making a very serious case for becoming the seventh name on that list.
Evan Bouchard’s scorching start to the season says he can
Through nine games, Bouchard has seven goals, 11 assists, 18 points, a plus-16 rating, zero penalty minutes and two game-winning goals, the most recent of which came in overtime against Minnesota on Tuesday.
He is averaging 25:34 of ice time per night, has already contributed a power play goal and four power play assists, and has not had a scoreless game since the season opener. The pace he is playing at right now would project to a crazy 168 points over a full 84-game season, which is obviously not going to happen, but the fact that the number sounds that absurd is itself a good indicator of just how dominant his start has been.
The historic markers are already stacking up. Bouchard became only the fifth defenceman in NHL history to record at least 10 points through the first four games of a season, and he also became just the second defenceman ever to score six goals in that same window, joining Harry Cameron, who accomplished the feat in the opening four games of the 1917–18 season with the Toronto Arenas.
Oilers are giving him every reason to keep going
The Oilers are also playing their best hockey in years on both sides of the puck, which gives Bouch arguably more runway to operate than he has had at any other point in his career. Last season, Edmonton was a mess defensively, finishing in the bottom 10 in goals against, expected goals against, and goals saved above expected, and those weaknesses ultimately cost them in the playoffs. New Head Coach Mike Babcock came in this summer, and through eight games, the transformation has been truly striking.
The Oilers currently rank seventh in the NHL with just 14 goals against, second in expected goals against at 12.5, and they lead the entire league in expected goals against per 60 minutes at 1.9.
The roster, still missing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Matt Savoie, has become one of the most defensively sound sides in the league, which to be honest is not something we predicted heading into the year. Devon Levi has steadied the crease the way Edmonton has needed for a long time, posting a .939 save percentage over his last four starts, and when a team wins games at this kind of rate, the offensive opportunities for a defenceman like Evan Bouchard only multiply.
The 84-game season is a factor worth taking seriously
The NHL expanded the regular season to 84 games this year, the first time that has happened since the 1993–94 season, with each team now playing two additional divisional games compared to the old 82-game format. Those extra nights can be the difference maker too, given last season Evan Bouchard had finished five points short of hitting the 100-point record.
The math overall is very encouraging. Bouchard already has 18 points through nine games, which means across the remaining 75 games he only needs 82 more at a rate of about 1.09 per game to hit triple digits.
That number is actually slightly below the pace he averaged last season, so even if he plays at the same level he showed in 2025–26 without any improvement at all, the projection lands somewhere around 105 points. The target is, so to say, well within a realistic range for a player of his caliber at this stage of his career.
A chip on the shoulder?
Last season, Bouchard finished with a career-high 95 points including 21 goals, played all 82 games, averaged 24:41 of ice time per night, and led every NHL defenceman in scoring by 14 points over second place. He was the most productive blueliner in the league by a comfortable margin, and it was the most points by a defenceman since Karlsson’s 101-point season in 2022–23.
Despite all of that, when the Norris Trophy finalists were announced, his name was not among them. Zach Werenski won the award with Cale Makar and Rasmus Dahlin rounding out the ballot, and Evan Bouchard became only the second defenceman in the salary cap era to lead the position in scoring by more than 10 points and not receive a finalist nod.
When the news came out, he was straightforward about how it felt. “When I saw that come out, I was definitely upset a little bit,” he said on TSN OverDrive last May. “Stings a little bit, but you know what? You get back at it, and you forget about it.”
Whether or not he has truly forgotten about it, the way he has played through the first nine games of this season has been the perfect answer to the Norris snub.
What getting to 100 would actually mean for Bouch
The full list of defencemen who have reached 100 points in a season reads like a Hall of Fame plaque, because that is essentially what it is. Bobby Orr’s six seasons at or above that mark are still the most by any defenceman in history, highlighted by his record-setting 139-point campaign in 1970–71, which remains the single greatest individual season a blueliner has ever produced.
Paul Coffey’s five seasons include a jaw-dropping 138-point effort in 1985–86 when he also scored 48 goals, the most ever by a defenceman in a single year. Potvin, MacInnis, Leetch, and Karlsson each had one, and together all six of them account for only 15 occurrences across more than a century of pro hockey.
Multiple analysts have already suggested that a 100-point season from Bouchard would make the Norris Trophy essentially impossible to deny him, and given everything that happened last spring, there is a strong case that the award means more to him right now than it might to someone who has never been overlooked in that particular way.
This is Evan Bouchard’s year
Nothing in the sport is guaranteed and the distance between 95 points and 100 has proven to be a real chasm for even the best offensive defencemen of any era, but Bouchard has more going for him right now than any blueliner has had in a long time.
He is playing on a structurally improved team with a goaltender finally giving him the support he needed, he has two extra games compared to the old schedule, and he has what we may call a chip on his shoulder.
The 100-point defenceman is one of hockey’s rarest creatures, but if the first nine games of 2026–27 are any kind of signal, Evan Bouchard might as well have decided this is the year he stops being overlooked.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
