The NHL has revealed the finalists for the Hart Memorial Trophy, awarded to the league’s most valuable player. It’s the three we have talked about nearly the entire season: Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon and the reigning MVP, Connor McDavid.
While we’ve had an idea of who would be the finalists for some time, the actual winner is unclear. All three contenders have a strong case in some way.
Nikita Kucherov – Tampa Bay Lightning
The 2018-19 Hart winner and this season’s Art Ross Trophy winner looks to take the award home for the second time. Kucherov finished with 144 points, the second-most points over the last 28 years (McDavid had 153 last season).
His case for the award is made for how he lifted the Lightning into the playoffs. According to NHL Public Relations, of the Lightning’s 288 goals (excluding shootout-deciding goals), Kucherov was involved in exactly half of them. This is the 12th time in NHL history that a player picked up a point on at least 50% of his team’s goals and just the third time in the 21st century.
Kucherov had 54 more points than the second-best player on the team – Brayden Point with 90 – and he assisted 31 of the 46 goals the second-best player scored.
On top of all of that, he is the fifth player to record 100 assists in a season and the first winger to do so. Should he win the Hart, he’d become the fourth active player to win the award multiple times. He also had a league-leading 23 three-point games, nearly double the number of no-point games he had (12).
Nathan MacKinnon – Colorado Avalanche
MacKinnon was in the Art Ross race until the end. It seemed like on any given night, he could have a multi-point game that could put him ahead of Kucherov. MacKinnon was a key cog in the dominant Colorado Avalanche team that led the NHL in goals in 2023-24.
During the season, MacKinnon tallied a 35-game point streak on home ice, the second-longest home-ice point streak in league history. Remember that this was during 41 total home games. He went scoreless in Denver twice the whole season. While on the topic of streaks, he became the first player in NHL history to record two separate point streaks of 19 games or more.
MacKinnon led the league in even-strength points (92) and multi-point games (44).
He has yet to win the Hart in his career, but he is a finalist for the fourth time. He’s been the runner-up twice, including once to fellow finalist, McDavid.
Connor McDavid – Edmonton Oilers
McDavid: the candidate who is most familiar with the award by a long shot. He’s won it three times, been a finalist two other times (excluding this season), and has received votes for the award every year besides his rookie season. However, this is not one of those seasons where you can just say “It’s McDavid” and hand him the award.
That being said, he still has a chance, and a solid case, to be the fourth player to win the award a fourth time. He was part of an Oilers team that tripped on its skate laces out of the gate (2-9-1 start) but then picked themselves up and roared back up the standings.
He had a slow start by his standard with 10 points in his first 11 games with only two goals. However, his final 65 games saw him record 122 points (1.8769 points per game). That’s an 82-game pace of 153 points, his last season’s point total that resulted in his third Hart Trophy.
He became the fourth player in NHL history to record 100 assists in a season, beating out Kucherov by two days. Some milestones this season include reaching 900 career points (the fifth-fastest to reach the mark) and 600 assists (the fourth-fastest to do so).
McDavid continues to bring the same dominant consistency year after year and was a key reason his team turned its season around. We’ll have to see if that will be enough to add to his award collection.