Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid barely missed out on winning his fourth Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player.
On Thursday, the NHL announced that Tampa Bay winger Nikita Kucherov won the Hart Trophy for the second time in his career. He won it with 1,436 points — just 10 more than McDavid, who had 1,426 points for the runner-up finish.
Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche was a close third with 1,297 points, and Macklin Celebrini of the San Jose Sharks finished fourth with 625 points.
The other player to receive a first-place vote for the Hart Trophy was Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki, who finished fifth with 102 points.
Connor McDavid Had Good Argument to Win the Hart Trophy
McDavid had a good argument to win the fourth Hart Trophy of his incredible NHL career.
He led the league in points this season with 138; his 48 goals were third, and his 90 assists were first, while playing in all 82 games for Edmonton.
Kucherov, meanwhile, finished second in points with 130; his 44 goals were eighth, and his 86 assists were second, while playing in 76 games.
The Tampa Bay winger did have a higher point-per-game average (1.71) than McDavid (1.68), and that is something that the voters likely took into consideration.
The Lightning also finished with 106 points this season, while the Oilers had just 93 points. Since the Hart Trophy is adjudged to be the player who is most valuable to his team, the voters must have felt that the Lightning’s slightly superior record was part of the difference in why they felt he edged out McDavid for this award.
It is worth noting that McDavid won the Ted Lindsay Award as the NHL’s most outstanding player, as voted on by his peers, an award that arguably means more since it’s the other players voting for it, not the media.
In fact, McDavid has won the Ted Lindsay Award five times in his career — meaning in two of the seasons he won the Ted Lindsay Award as the other players felt he was the league MVP, but the media did not, as he did not win the Hart Trophy in those seasons (2017-18 and this season).
Full Hart Trophy Voting Table
Here is the full Hart Trophy voting table via the NHL.
2025-26 Hart Trophy Voting
|
Points |
(1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th) |
||
|
1. |
Nikita Kucherov, TBL |
1,436 |
(72-60-52-12-0) |
|
2. |
Connor McDavid, EDM |
1,426 |
(68-62-56-10-2) |
|
3. |
Nathan MacKinnon, COL |
1,297 |
(52-54-69-17-3) |
|
4. |
Macklin Celebrini, SJS |
625 |
(5-20-18-103-36) |
|
5. |
Nick Suzuki, MTL |
102 |
(1-0-0-19-35) |
|
6. |
David Pastrnak, BOS |
82 |
(0-0-1-11-44) |
|
7. |
Zach Werenski, CBJ |
53 |
(0-0-0-10-23) |
|
8. |
Cole Caufield, MTL |
51 |
(0-2-1-6-14) |
|
9. |
Rasmus Dahlin, BUF |
16 |
(0-0-0-3-7) |
|
10. |
Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL |
12 |
(0-0-1-1-4) |
|
11. |
Moritz Seider, DET |
8 |
(0-0-0-2-2) |
|
t-12. |
Sidney Crosby, PIT |
5 |
(0-0-0-1-2) |
|
Cale Makar, COL |
5 |
(0-0-0-1-2) |
|
|
14. |
Jason Robertson, DAL |
5 |
(0-0-0-0-5) |
|
15. |
Lane Hutson, MTL |
4 |
(0-0-0-1-1) |
|
16. |
Matthew Schaefer, NYI |
4 |
(0-0-0-0-4) |
|
17. |
Scott Wedgewood, COL |
3 |
(0-0-0-1-0) |
|
t-18. |
Quinn Hughes, MIN |
2 |
(0-0-0-0-2) |
|
Kirill Kaprizov, MIN |
2 |
(0-0-0-0-2) |
|
|
Jeremy Swayman, BOS |
2 |
(0-0-0-0-2) |
|
|
Tage Thompson, BUF |
2 |
(0-0-0-0-2) |
|
|
Dan Vladar, PHI |
2 |
(0-0-0-0-2) |
|
|
t-23. |
Jack Hughes, NJD |
1 |
(0-0-0-0-1) |
|
Gabriel Landeskog, COL |
1 |
(0-0-0-0-1) |
|
|
Ilya Sorokin, NYI |
1 |
(0-0-0-0-1) |
|
|
Logan Thompson, WSH |
1 |
(0-0-0-0-1) |
(10-7-5-3-1 points allocation)
It’s always interesting to see some of the down-ballot votes for all of the NHL awards.
This year, one of the bigger surprises when you look at the downballots is Montreal Canadiens star Cole Caufield getting two second-place votes. While a great player, it’s shocking he got two second-place votes when players like McDavid, Kucherov, MacKinnon, Celebrini, and even his teammate, Suzuki, were all clearly ahead of him.
Ultimately, this was a tough vote that came down to just 10 total points, so it was truly an award that came down to the wire. In the end, though, the voters felt that Kucherov was the rightful favorite.
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