In a season to remember for individual accomplishments, this year’s vote on the eventual winner of the Hart Memorial Trophy will be one of the most complicated in recent memory. However, the vote can be widdled down to four players, which include Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers, Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche.
Winning two out of the last three Hart Memorial Trophies, McDavid’s goal-scoring was cut in half this season, as he only managed 32 on the year, placing him tied for 14th in the Western Conference with Wyatt Johnston. However, McDavid was able to do something he had failed to do even during his incredible season last year; crack the 100-assist marker which had previously only been done by Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Bobby Orr. Helping the Oilers return to this year’s playoffs after a difficult start to the year, McDavid’s claim for Most Valuable Player may be overshadowed by his teammate, Zach Hyman, who was able to score 54 goals for Edmonton this season.
Having already scored 60 goals once in his career, Matthews cemented himself as the league’s current best goal-scorer, putting up 69 markers this season. Although he failed to reach 70, Matthews’ regular season was the 15th best all-time in terms of goal-scoring. Unlike McDavid, it is more than unlikely that Matthews will be overshadowed by his teammates with such an incredible season, as the second-closest goal scorer on the team, William Nylander, generated nearly 30 fewer tallies than Matthews in the category.
Having arguably the best case for the award, there is no question that Kucherov led the way for the Lightning this year. Not only did Kucherov tie McDavid in assists this season with 100, he has already captured the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top point-scorer with 144 on the year. While setting the bar for points in any given year is impressive, the gap between Kucherov and his teammates in Tampa Bay was massive, placing himself 54 points above the next highest-scorer.
Setting a record of his own this year, MacKinnon was able to generate at least a point in 35 consecutive home games for the Avalanche this season, which is five less than the record Gretzky set during the 1988-89 season with the Los Angeles Kings. Over that stretch, MacKinnon went on an incredible run, scoring 27 goals and 46 assists through the team’s first 35 games at Ball Arena. On the year, MacKinnon scored 51 goals and 89 assists over 82 games, and may have the case of putting together the most complete season compared to the other candidates.
If the matter was up to you, who would you vote for to win this year’s Hart Memorial Trophy?
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Mac Attack!
Forsberg should be on this list, He defined what the Hart is this season for Nashville.
Should be Panarin.
Most Valuable Player in NHL is Panarin but since this award is now just given to whoever scores the most points, like the Norris, give it to Kucherov.
Why Panarin over the other guys?
Bc he’s a rangers fan.
It’ll be surprising if MacKinnon doesn’t win it.
Kucherov had 54 more points than the next guy on the Lightning’s scoring list. Panarin had 43 more points than the next guy on the Rangers scoring list. Pastrnak had 43 more points than the next player on the Bruins scoring list. Those three guys carried their teams to the playoffs. MacKinnon had 36 more points than Rantaanen, but Raantanen had 104 points. Matthews wasn’t even leading his team in scoring until late in the season.
He also scored more goals than anyone has in the last ~30 years and had 12 more than the next guy. There are many subjective ways to define a player’s value.
Remove Panarin and the team is still competitive and makes playoffs
Remove Kucherov and the lightning might make playoffs
Remove MacKinnon and the Aves might make playoffs
Remove Mathews and the Leafs might make playoffs
Remove Hughes (Quinn) and the Canucks don’t win division, they don’t make playoffs
Remove Josi and the Preds don’t make playoffs
So who is the real Hart Winner?
Just because you play with talented players doesn’t mean you aren’t the most valuable player. It doesn’t make any sense that players are disqualified for an award based on where their team finished.
Remove McDavid and the Oilers probably miss the playoffs lol
Agree. He’s certainly a finalist
Kucherov! He figured in nearly half of all the TB goals!
I wish the NHL would just drop the “most valuable to his team” component of this award. Players have no control over who their teammates are, how well coached the team is, or how good (or bad) their goaltending is.
Are the Leafs and Oilers even Wild Card teams without Matthews or McDavid? I dunno, probably? Good teams find ways to pick up the slack when top players go down. So that thought exercise is pretty meaningless IMO.
On the bright side, there’s no wrong answer this year and whoever wins will deserve it.
I mean, technically there are two awards, one for the “most valuable” and the other for just “best player”. I think that makes the most sense, even if generally the winner of one usually wins the other.
The MVP to me is the best player, as long as that player had his usual yr. & That’s McDavid!