Risers and fallers in the race for the 2024 Hart Trophy
Though the Hart Trophy is perhaps the second-most coveted prize in hockey, it garnered precious little drama throughout the 2022-2023 campaign.
Even as Matthew Tkachuk scored 109 points while dragging the Florida Panthers to the Playoffs (and later the Stanley Cup Final), and David Pastrnak recorded just the third 60-goal season of the century, it became clear early on that Connor McDavid would claim MVP honors for the third time. On the back of a historic 153-point campaign, the best player in hockey is the favorite to win the award again next year but might well keep different company during the 2024 NHL Awards.
Who will surge towards glory, and which players have had their last chance to be named the league’s best?
Risers
Even by the lofty standards of first-overall picks, the pressure for Jack Hughes to succeed has been outstanding since he joined the New Jersey Devils in 2019. As if changing the fortune of a proud franchise in a lengthy dry spell was not enough responsibility, Hughes’s obvious good looks and impressive lineage (brothers Quinn and Luke were also blue-chip prospects) made him the NHL’s choice to carry America’s hockey torch.
Things did not only go smoothly in that department initially; Hughes’s first two pro seasons were more than respectable for a teen but hardly enough to justify the at-times unfair hype machine built around him. After showing his true promise during an abridged 2021-2022 campaign, during which he scored 26 goals and 56 points in just 49 games, the USNTDP alum exploded for another 43 goals and 99 points in 78 games last season. A fully-realized superstar on a rising team, the center’s game-changing ability (the Devils controlled 61.2% of high-danger chances and 58.6% of expected goals with Hughes on the ice) finally matches his still-growing celebrity.
Hughes’s Devils made an absurd 61-point leap last year, and fellow franchise building blocks Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier are now joined by stud power forward Timo Meier and veteran sniper Tyler Toffoli in a truly lethal top-six. The sky’s the limit at the Prudential Center, where New Jersey has the sixth-best Stanley Cup odds in the league. As the team’s signature player and leading scorer, Hughes can capitalize on his fame and the Devils’ growth with some individual hardware.
Where Hughes’s progression as a player coincides with his team’s rapid ascent to vaunt him into Hart contention, another player could fairly say he is due for a win after years of utter dominance. Since finishing second in Hart Trophy voting for the first time in 2017-2018, Nathan MacKinnon has reached two more podiums while erupting for 170 goals and 456 points in 335 games. His 1.35 points per game are the fourth-most in hockey over that span, and if it were not for a guy with a similar name and game, MacKinnon might be known as the best in the world. Connor McDavid does exist, though, and ‘Mack’ has had to live in his shadow despite a uniquely dynamic skillset.
Could that change in 2023-2024? MacKinnon was again overshadowed by McDavid, along with 55-goal monster and Colorado Avalanche teammate Mikko Rantanen, but quietly blew away his previous career-high in points (99) with 111 in 71 games. Added responsibility on an Avs squad hit by the classic Stanley Cup exodus and frequent injuries to superstar defenseman Cale Makar forced MacKinnon to shine, and his 1.53 points per game mark trailed only McDavid and fellow Oiler Leon Draisaitl.
Where a Hughes Hart would be an award for the most recognizable star on the most exciting team, MacKinnon is a legit top-five NHL building block who is rightfully tired of being overlooked. He was on pace to score 125 points in an 82-game season in 2022-2023, and his team, which has added Ross Colton, Jonathan Drouin, and Ryan Johansen, are early Cup favorites on Betano. The Central Division, the Western Conference, and the entire National Hockey League should be very afraid of Nathan MacKinnon. If old rival McDavid suffers from voter fatigue, the lightning-quick center could add an elusive MVP to his well-stocked trophy cabinet.
Elsewhere, nostalgia could favor Sidney Crosby, still one of the league’s best two-way players and its ultimate competitor, leader, and winner. He would need everything to go right for Kyle Dubas’s over-the-hill gang in Pittsburgh, along with a rare healthy season, to win his third Hart Trophy.
Tage Thompson will be a popular dark horse pick for the award but needs his wide-open Sabres outfit to win more than just style points to gain wider recognition. Can the towering forward, who is somehow already 25, improve on a banner year that saw him notch an impressive 47 goals and 94 points?
No Movement
Connor McDavid’s 153-point season was historic for innumerable reasons. No player had reached the 150-point plateau since Mario Lemieux in 1996, and only Lemeuix (x4), Wayne Gretzky (x8), and Steve Yzerman (1988-1989) have ever had a more prolific season. He also deposited 64 goals to win the Rocket Richard Trophy, a fun fact for McDavid that would be career-defining for just about anyone else.
That number should not be possible in the post-Brodeur world and makes it virtually impossible for McDavid to improve his Hart chances for 2023-2024. How can a player do better than steamrolling the field with ease? McDavid is not leaving the driver’s seat of the Hart Trophy conversation anytime soon, but if the best season of the 21st century is the benchmark, he is not actively rising.
The third-place finisher in the 2023 Hart Trophy vote, Matthew Tkachuk’s superstar scoring and nasty forechecking made him an invaluable combination of finesse and physicality. How many 40-goal, 109-point-scorers can fight their own battles in the modern NHL? Tkachuk beat and bullied his way to the Stanley Cup Final, and at times it felt like, save for Carter Verhaeghe, he was the only Florida Panther teams had to gameplan for throughout the playoffs. They still could not stop him, and the vanquished Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs spent the summer scrambling for answers; it is no coincidence they will employ Milan Lucic and Ryan Reaves next season, respectively.
Like McDavid, though, Tkachuk flew too high in 2022-2023 to actively improve his chances next season. He is young enough to improve, but the American’s gutsy run past the giants of the Eastern Conference is going to be tough to top. Another triple-digit season might not be enough to put his name on an individual award.
One former Hart winner who will have a hard time getting his hands back on the trophy is Draisaitl, the prolific German centerman who cannot separate his legacy from McDavid’s. Though Draisaitl pipped his captain for the award in 2020, he finished just 7th in voting last season while racking up 128 points (T-2nd since 2000), pacing the league in goals on the powerplay (32), and jointly leading in playoff tallies (13) despite a second-round exit. It’s hard to get noticed with #97 is around, but no one said hockey is fair.
Fallers
When the dust settles on the current era of NHL hockey, will any superstar player go more underappreciated than Nikita Kucherov? Despite generational offensive creativity, his unimpressive athleticism and frequent injury (see: cap) absences have allowed him to go underrated despite two Stanley Cups and a 128-point season in 2019.
If Kucherov has flown under the radar, that is where he will stay as he enters his 30s. The Russian wizard is still unstoppable on the powerplay and during the postseason, but the hard truth is that his Tampa Bay Lightning have finally fallen off. After three-straight Eastern Conference titles gave way to a first-round exit last season, depth pieces Colton and Alex Killorn left Florida over the summer.
Kucherov was as brilliant as ever with 113 regular-season points, but expect his later career to mirror Kane’s: a mercurial genius on a once-great, now-flailing team. At least they both have an MVP and a few championship rings to soften that blow.
David Pastrnak is seemingly at a much different place in his career than Kucherov but is similarly handicapped by a dominant team in line for a sharp downturn. Tkachuk and the Panthers charged back from a 3-1 deficit to send the record-setting Boston Bruins home with two black eyes and a metric ton of embarrassment, and things only got worse for the Bs in the offseason.
Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci finally called it quits after what felt like a dozen seasons of “one last ride,” Tyler Bertuzzi, Connor Clifton, and Dmitry Orlov followed the money in free agency, and GM Don Sweeney sent Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno to Chicago as a cost-cutting measure. Where there was once a Perfection line for Pastrnak to fall back on, there is now Morgan Geekie and Pavel Zacha. At least Lucic is back.
Pastrnak might be the best winger in the NHL after recording an incredible 60-goal season, but now that the band has broken up, Boston’s championship window is locked shut in a loaded Atlantic Division. Improvements to the Sabres, Red Wings, and Senators ensure that. A sniper can only be so valuable on a middle-of-the-road team.
In Washington, Alex Ovechkin has seen his last MVP honors but showed no signs of slowing his pursuit of Gretzky’s all-time goal record. The big Russian has 92 in the past two seasons alone despite the Capitals’ struggles, and keeping that pace would cement his place as the greatest goalscorer in hockey history.
Don’t expect it to pay dividends on awards night: Ovi has not finished in the top five for Hart voting since 2015 and fell out of the top ten last season.
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