Who Deserves the NHL's Hart Trophy?

By Eitan Mirel

Analyzing the Best Players in the NHL to Determine Who Should Receive the MVP Award

The NHL‘s most valuable player is awarded the Hart trophy. The awarding of the trophy often ends in controversy. The annual debate over what it means to be the MVP persists no matter who wins. Many argue that the value of a player is decided by natural skill and statistics like goals, assists, and points. In recent years the trophy has been awarded to the Art Ross winner. The Art Ross trophy is given to the player with the most points that year. Others argue that the MVP should go to the player that they feel had the largest impact on their team’s success. There is also debate over the fact this trophy is awarded following the conclusion of the regular season and does not account for the postseason. This means that the award fails to consider for the most important part of any given season, the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Connor McDavid holds the Hart Trophy.

The finalists for the league’s most prestigious individual award for the 2023-24 season are Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers, Nikita Kucherov of the Lightning, and Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche. The trophy is decided upon by the Professional Hockey Writers Association and in recent memory the committee has favored McDavid. He has won the trophy three times and has been nominated six times over the first nine years of his career. McDavid started the season slowly scoring-wise. Just ten games into the season he was ranked 107th in scoring. However, he had an amazing second half of the year and put himself back into the conversation for the Hart Trophy. McDavid ended the season third in points with 132 points, 100 of them being assists. McDavid and fellow nominee, Nikita Kucherov were the first players to record 100 assists in a season since Wayne Gretzky did back in 1991. Kucherov ended the season with 144 points. His 44 goals and 100 assists set the new franchise record for the Tampa Bay Lightning and placed him first in the entire league. Kucherov also won the Hart trophy in 2019 when he led the league in points and won the Art Ross trophy. The last nominee Nathan MacKinnon ended the season four points behind Kucherov with 140 points. He led his team in every scoring category, led the league with 405 shots on goal, and had a home point streak of 35 games, the second longest in NHL history. When it comes down to it, this may be the closest Hart race in NHL history.

Nathan MacKinnon goes to the bench after scoring to complete the hat trick.

You could easily make a case for why each player could deservedly win the trophy. Whether it is the fact that MacKinnon came close to breaking a record only set by Gretzky with his record-breaking point streak and setting numerous other historic scoring streaks. Or the award could be once again awarded to McDavid who recorded record breaking assists and single-handedly led his team out of a disastrous start to the season. Some may say that MacKinnon is surrounded by other stars like Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen or that McDavid couldn’t do it without Draisaitl. You just can’t say the same about Nikita Kucherov.

Nikita Kucherov skating with the puck.

It became clear that Kucherov had the shallowest team of any Tampa Bay Team in recent memory. They are only a fraction of the team they were even two years ago when they won the cup or the team in 2019 when he last captured the Art Ross. The likes of JT Miller, Yanni Gourde, Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn, Ryan McDonagh, and even Mikhail Sergachev for much of the season were all missing pieces compared to Kucherov’s last great season. The thing that remained the same was Kucherov’s ability to produce. With an aging core around him, Kucherov produced with whoever was on his line and it was clear he was able to raise the level of play with anyone who was placed alongside him. Kucherov this season accounted for 50% of his team's points. Compared to other teams, he has the largest gap between him and his team’s next leading point producer being 69 points ahead of him. There is no debate, whatever numbers you try to pull up, both the statistics and the eye test easily tell you just how valuable Kucherov was to his team’s success this year. Without him the Lightning would be nowhere near a playoff spot, and he deserves the right to be named this year's Hart Trophy winner.