I know it’s only December and teams have only played about 25 games so far this season.

I know that.

But 25 games is a decent number and everything, and it at least gives you some sort of idea of what the benchmark for success is. Will Patrik Laine keep up his molten goalscoring pace? I don’t know, but someone has to surpass the baseline he set, won’t they? And hey, it’s starting to look like Connor McDavid has edged into “best player alive” territory. Look at the point total alone. Tough to disagree there, and if someone wants to make a counterargument, well, that’s the guy to see about it.

Anyway, I say all this because Brent Burns has been the best defenseman in the league this year and I don’t think it’s especially close. Travis Yost did a fairly advanced take on this the other day, but not so advanced you’re going to be bogged down in it.

For my part of the argument, I’m going to dumb it down a little bit and just give you seven simple reasons Burns should be the Norris favorite right now.

7. He’s a Good Canadian Boy

Do not for a second think this kind of thing doesn’t matter. If Erik Karlsson were from Simcoe instead of Sweden, he probably waltzes to another well-deserved Norris season. Know where the nice big boy Brent Burns is from? Barrie. In Ontario. In Canada. That’s going to matter to some people. Probably. Definitely.

6. Points

Karlsson recently took over the league lead in blue line scoring, as he is wont to do, and following Wednesday night’s games was up to 27 in 27 games on the season. The man he passed? Burns, who now has 23 with one fewer game played than Karlsson.

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It’s hard to say that anyone will be able to keep pace with Karlsson in a scoring race, let alone surpass him once again, but if anyone seems likely to do it, it’s Burns, who scored 158 points in 190 games since the start of 14-15. Which is a lot.

And hey, remember when people used to complain about how the Norris only ever went to a defenseman with a ton of points from a good team? Hey, Brent Burns has a ton of points! And also…

5. His team is good (or at least in a bad enough division to appear that way)

There were perhaps one or two reasons to be skeptical that San Jose could have taken a bit of a step back this summer, but so far they haven’t really shown any signs of slowing down. I think some of that has to do with how rotten the entire Pacific is apart from the Sharks and Kings. Maybe you include Edmonton here, and I wouldn’t begrudge it just because McDavid is that level of a difference-maker. But nonetheless, it’s tough to see any of those teams improving appreciably.

As such, the Sharks should continue to rack up points at a pretty respectable clip. Tough to see them falling out of a top-three spot this season. And honestly, if the Sens make the playoffs last season, Karlsson probably wins too. Let’s put it this way: His team being awful enough when he was off the ice that they missed the playoffs despite his heroic season certainly didn’t help his candidacy. “Should of killed penalties,” and so on.

Burns does that and the Sharks are better for it. But even when he’s off the ice, they’re still really good, and it’ll only fuel his candidacy. Even if it shouldn’t.

4. Shot volume

This is a crazy one.

Alex Ovechkin has led the NHL in shot volume every single season since he came into the league. He’s always north of 360 or so — about four a game — when the owners don’t lock out the players. Burns is on a similar pace right now. From the blue line.

And in fact, as of this writing he’s actually ahead of Ovechkin in shots by 12. It’s actually Jake Voracek (100) who’s in second place right now.

If Burns can keep anything resembling this shooting pace up for the remainder of the season, that would be incredible. He put up 353 last season which is the seventh-largest number by a defenseman since the ’60s. The only guys ahead of him? Bobby Orr (four times!) and Ray Bourque (twice). If he hits 400, which he almost certainly won’t, he’d still be 13 behind Orr’s age-21 season, in which he averaged more than 5.4 shots per game. Burns would have to increase his output by 25 percent.

But still, he looks likely to once again land in Bourque/Orr territory, which, if you’re a defenseman, is where you want to be.

Story continues