As the 2025–26 regular season winds down, most of the attention is focused towards the playoff race and the subsequent playoffs. But another topic of discussion is the NHL awards, given that they are based off of regular season performance.
One of the awards that is currently being debated is the Hart Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the player who is the most valuable to his team.
The inclusion of “to his team” is what makes the Hart debate so volatile each year. It technically does not mean the most valuable/best player in the league that season, even though the trophy is mostly thought of as an MVP award.
There is the Ted Lindsay Award that is described as the award for the most outstanding player, which of course therefore fits the usual MVP trophy void. However, the Hart is mostly seen as the more prestigious award, and therefore this criterion issue becomes such a big story each year.
How does Connor McDavid fit with the other candidates for the Hart Trophy?
McDavid has won the Hart Trophy three times so far in his career, the most of any active player (Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are the only other players to win more than one, at two apiece).
This year, McDavid seemed to be the slightly forgotten man in the discussion, despite being the league’s leading scorer with 133 points (5 more than second-place Nikita Kucherov and seven points more than Nathan MacKinnon). That’s also his second best season in his career, having topped the 132 he posted in 2023–24 (when he also did not win the Hart).
MacKinnon is in the conversation as the best player on the best team in the league, while Kucherov is a candidate due to being 41 points above his next scoring teammate on a team that is within striking distance of first place in the Atlantic division.
The other player who was heavily considered during the year is Macklin Celebrini, who has almost twice as many points as his next closest teammate and looked poised to lead the San Jose Sharks back into the playoffs since 2018–19. However, with the Sharks’ playoff chances barely hanging on by a thread, that narrative has died down a bit.
The falling out of the race by Macklin along with Leon Draisaitl’s injury has resulted in McDavid being looked at as a serious contender for the trophy now. The question is, is he the most deserving of it over MacKinnon and Kucherov? Here are the things that say he should be the winner.
Scoring Leader
As mentioned above, McDavid enters tonight’s game against the Colorado Avalanche as the league’s leading scorer. Granted, that can’t be the only criteria for the Hart, considering there is the Art Ross Trophy for that exact accomplishment.
Using the point of being a substantial amount of points above your teammates, McDavid is 36 points above Leon Draisaitl for the Oilers. Sure, that’s because Draisaitl has been out of the lineup with injury and has played 15 less games than McDavid, but the point still stands.
MacKinnon is just 27 points above Martin Necas on the Avs, so technically, this should be a point for McDavid over him. However, this category would actually go to Kucherov, as noted above.
But given that he is the league’s leading scorer, you have to think that it balances out Kucherov’s five point lead over his teammate.
Points Percentage on Team’s Goals
If the focus is on who is most valuable to their own team, then the amount of a team’s goals a player contributes has to be a pretty big factor, right?
If so, then McDavid absolutely deserves the Hart.
The Oilers have scored 275 goals this year, meaning he has been involved in a whopping 48.4% of the team’s goals.
The Avalanche have scored a league high 295 goals, so MacKinnon has been in on 42.7% of their tallies. Not bad, but that’s a pretty decent gap.
Kucherov’s 128 points on 284 Lightning goals puts him at 45.1%. Definitely impressive, but still doesn’t show as much reliance by his team on him despite the points gap between him and Jake Guentzel.
Even Celebrini doesn’t have the same contribution as McDavid, as his 110 points on 240 goals is “just” 45.8%.
So yeah, point McDavid.
Play Without Draisaitl
One thing that has always been used as a knock on both McDavid and Leon Draisaitl throughout their careers is the fact that they play with each other and therefore benefit from that (despite that argument basically never being used against MacKinnon with Makar and Rantanen, or really any other player in the league).
But in the 12 games since Draisaitl got hurt, McDavid has scored 10 goals and 19 points while the Oilers have gone 7–4–1, putting them in contention for winning the Pacific Division. Sure, there are players with more goals and points, as well as teams with better records during that span, but the gap between McDavid and his teammates is quite large. The next highest point getter has 14 points, while the next highest goal scorer has four goals.
When Draisaitl got hurt, the Oilers, were in third place in the Pacific, and were just as close to 6th place as they were to first place (when taking into account games in hand). Now, the Oilers just need to have one more point than Vegas and equal the Ducks record over the final two games to clinch first in the division.
No other Hart Trophy finalist faced the adversity McDavid did
Kucherov has 22 points in 13 games over this stretch, but Jake Guentzel has 18, and Brandon Hagel has 15 in just 10 games, along with both Anthony Cirelli and Darren Raddysh posting 12 points. So he has certainly had some run support.
Meanwhile, MacKinnon isn’t even the leading scorer for his time over this period, trailing Necas by two points.
Obviously, one stretch does not make or break a season, but it is basically indisputable that McDavid has carried the Oilers this final stretch of the season (although, maybe that is because if you wanted to say that Bouchard has also been a big reason, that would then fly in the face of everyone saying Bouch doesn’t deserve the Norris).
The Oilers Record Without McDavid Recording a Point
There have been 14 games this season where McDavid failed to record a point. The Oilers record those games? 0–12–2. That’s right, if McDavid doesn’t get on the scoresheet, the team doesn’t win.
Meanwhile, MacKinnon has gone 18 games this season without a point, with the Avs going 6–9–3 for those games. Certainly not a great record, but still nowhere near the abysmal performance of the McDavid-less Oilers.
Kucherov has not registered a point in 15 games this season. The Lightning are 6–9 in those games, so again, not as good as when he does score, but certainly not an automatic loss for the team like it appears to be for Edmonton.
If a team absolutely needs a player to score in order to win, then I am pretty sure that would fit the criteria of “valuable”.
He’s Just Literally the Best Player in the Game
It really is an indisputable fact that McDavid is the best hockey player alive right now. 32 out of 32 teams would pick him as the first player to build their team around. That in and of itself has to make him the most valuable to his team, right?
I will grant that this is not necessarily a fair point, but when people point to Cale Makar as being a serious Norris contender on the basis of him being the “undisputed” best defenceman in the game, then McDavid should get the same consideration.
Again, I don’t think this actually has any merit, as it should be judged based on the particular season, but just saying.
The Verdict?
Objectively speaking, McDavid does deserve to win the Hart this season based on the above. This last stretch of games has sealed it for me, given how important the games are and how he has had to take over the team with Draisaitl being sidelined.
That being said, if one of MacKinnon or Kucherov did end up winning, it wouldn’t be all that controversial. It really will come down to each voter’s preferred choice, and the only issue will be if it isn’t these three as the finalists.
