Who’s the NHL’s 2024 Player of the Year?
As the calendar flips to 2025, the sports world is in reflection mode… Top moments. Resolutions. Lists of the year’s best.
Last week, the Associated Press named Caitlin Clark and Shohei Ohtani its respective Female and Male Athletes of the Year. Wayne Gretzky (1982) and the collective U.S. ‘Miracle on Ice’ Olympic team (1980) remain the only hockey representation since those awards began in 1931. In Canada, Summer McIntosh, winner of four Paris Olympic swimming medals at age 17, earned the Northern Star Award as the country’s top athlete. Marie-Philip Poulin (2022) was the last hockey player honored.
But the NHL has no such award for the calendar year. Until now.
Today, we’re awarding the inaugural NHL Player of the Year for 2024. And there’s no shortage of legitimate candidates. We’ll profile six of them before naming the winner. The definition is simple: the NHL’s most outstanding performer of the calendar year. Playoffs count. Otherwise, interpret as you see fit.
📈 2024 Statistical Leaders
Before we review the candidates, here’s a quick summary of the 2024 calendar year’s leaderboards. Leaders are sorted based on regular season totals from January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024.
Most Points, 2024
Most Points by Defensemen, 2024
Top Save Percentage, 2024
⭐ The Candidates
(Listed alphabetically by last name)
Aleksander Barkov
The Case: Selke winner and captain of the Stanley Cup champions
All For: What a year for Barkov. Both reputationally and by the numbers, the Panthers‘ captain has taken the title of the NHL’s most complete player after Patrice Bergeron’s retirement. Consider his 2024 year… captures Selke with 94% of the vote… holds Connor McDavid pointless in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final… becomes the first Finn to captain a Cup winner… runner-up to McDavid for Conn Smythe… finishes the 2024 calendar year in the top 10 among forwards at nearly every defensive measure at 5-on-5… leads NHL in faceoff winning percentage (60.9%)… puts up 76 points in 68 games, good for 18th in points-per-game (1.12)… all while facing grueling assignments, defensive zone starts, and overcoming multiple lingering injuries.
All Against: In terms of offensive output, Barkov is not in the same class as other forward candidates. He finished 2024 tied for 103rd in goals (23) and tied for 37th in points (76), having missed 16 games. If we want to nitpick, Florida was one goal from blowing a 3-0 Cup Final lead to Edmonton, getting trounced 18-5 in Games 4-6. It’s easy to forget how ugly things looked going into Game 7.
Connor Hellebuyck
The Case: Vezina winner and most statistically dominant goaltender
All For: Winnipeg‘s brilliant netminder has earned plenty of praise lately. He’s deep into a third consecutive all-world season and the franchise is off to a dream start. But Hellebuyck’s dominance is still not fully appreciated. We saw in the leaderboard earlier that he led 2024 in save percentage (.926) by a stunning 11 points. The last goalie with that kind of gap in a full NHL season? Dominik Hasek… in 1998-99. While his peers among the elite — Ullmark, Juuse Saros, Igor Shesterkin, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ilya Sorokin, Jake Oettinger, Jeremy Swayman, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Thatcher Demko — have all battled inconsistency or injury, Hellebuyck has endured. His 44 wins led the NHL and his 64 starts were one off the lead in 2024.
All Against: The elephant in the room for Hellebuyck’s 2024 was his ill-fated playoff week in April. While his Jets were outclassed by the Avalanche, Hellebuyck faltered — he surrendered 24 goals in five starts, including 6.5 goals saved below expected per Evolving Wild.
Quinn Hughes
The Case: Norris winner and breakout defenseman
All For: Hughes lived in Cale Makar’s shadow for his first four seasons. Not as flashy. No team success. Middling defensive reputation. Minimal Norris love. All of that shifted in 2024. In his first season as captain, Vancouver won its first division title in 11 years. Hughes cruised to the Norris with a 96% vote share. He had an expected goal percentage of 54.6% in 2024 per Natural Stat Trick, while outscoring opponents an incredible 92-55 at 5-on-5. He bagged 89 regular season points in the 2024 calendar year — six fewer than Makar in three fewer games. Though Vancouver lost to Edmonton in Round 2, Hughes maintained solid playoff possession metrics while contributing 10 assists in 13 games.
All Against: The Canucks have had a clumsy start to 2024-25, presently flirting with a playoff spot. While they outperformed expectations in the 2024 playoffs, Hughes’ crew did buckle under the weight of three separate series leads against Edmonton.
Nikita Kucherov
The Case: Ross winner and best regular season per-game point scorer of the year
All For: In a year that most expected the Lightning to further fade into the sunset, Kucherov took charge. Cornerstones Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman entered their mid-30s. Vasilevskiy returned from injury but not in the same elite form. Newcomer Jake Guentzel replaced Stamkos in the offseason. Regardless of the team’s evolution, Kucherov found a new level — a preposterous, NHL-best 148-point pace in the regular season in 2024. He earned his second Art Ross Trophy in April after joining McDavid in a five-man fraternity of 100-assist seasons. Tampa remained dangerous too, earning the league’s sixth-best points percentage (.635), scoring the most goals per game (3.82) in 2024. Kucherov’s 48 power play points in 2024 anchored Tampa’s 27.7% success rate — both were #1 in the league.
All Against: Kucherov’s on-ice 5-on-5 goal differential of 83-65 (+18) was well back of candidates McDavid (+34) and Nathan MacKinnon (+33). In the post-season, Kucherov recorded seven points — all assists — in five games in an unceremonious dusting by the eventual champion Panthers. We won’t hold his All-Star Skills effort against him, I swear.
Nathan MacKinnon
The Case: Hart winner and most regular season points for the year
All For: From start to finish, it often felt like MacKinnon’s year. After five top-five finishes for the Hart Trophy, the Avalanche’s speed demon captured his first MVP. On a badly thinning roster, he also earned the Ted Lindsay Award as most outstanding as voted by his peers. And while the run started in 2023, MacKinnon nearly took down Wayne Gretzky’s home point streak record (40 games), falling five games shy. After a 19-game point streak in February/March, MacKinnon opened the 2024-25 season with another 17-game streak. He’s now atop the scoring race heading into the New Year. MacKinnon finished 2024 with the most regular season points (143), edging McDavid (138) and Kucherov (137). It’s an impressive feat of durability given he skates nearly 23 minutes nightly at altitude.
All Against: It’s difficult to poke holes. You can argue he spent a lot of time with Mikko Rantanen and Makar. But Kucherov and McDavid didn’t exactly play with scrubs, either. You can argue that Dallas neutralized MacKinnon (five points, -6 in Round 2) but his overall post-season (14 points in 11 games) was just fine. Faceoffs? Sure, he’s mediocre (45.9% in 2024). We’ll go with that.
Connor McDavid
The Case: Smythe winner and most combined points for the year
All For: The early season Oiler meltdown and Jay Woodcroft’s dismissal happened in 2023. So, by the time the calendar flipped, McDavid was in full flight. Despite missing six games in 2024, his total regular season and playoff stat line: 180 points in 103 games. For perspective, Matt Martin is nearing 1,000 games and has 177 career points. Sniper Cole Caufield only has 183 points in five years. But McDavid’s regular season work was nothing new. His latest tricks were in the postseason: breaking Gretzky’s playoff assists record (34); first ever back-to-back four-point games in a Final; first skater to win the Smythe in a losing cause in 46 years. McDavid has also quietly become elite defensively. In 2024, he was on the ice for the eighth-lowest rate of shot attempts against among qualified forwards.
☑️ #LetsGoOilers Connor McDavid has officially broken the era adjusted points record (44) in a single playoffs.
With 2 potential games to play, he could put some serious distance on it.
McDavid also has the era adjusted assist mark (36) by 8(!) over Gretzky (30 in 1987). https://t.co/eqm4ZbZ34N pic.twitter.com/ey4WJkHrSz
All Against: While #97 led the NHL in assists (104) in 2024, his goal scoring cooled. His 34 regular season goals were tied for 27th. He was famously held pointless in Games 6 and 7 against Florida, but after 11 points in the previous four games, he can be afforded some leniency. Sidney Crosby, for comparison, was held pointless in Games 5, 6 and 7 in his first Cup win.
🏆 The 2024 Player of the Year
Now, Player of the Year does not mean best player. McDavid is certainly that. Anyone suggesting otherwise is just tired of him. Barkov was the hero of the year. Hellebuyck and Hughes were the best at their positions. Kucherov was the most efficient scorer this year. But this comes down to two dudes…
MacKinnon had a near-perfect 2024, wire-to-wire. The streaks. The MVP. The point totals. The ice time. The endurance. There’s little else he could have done to elevate his team from January through December.
But what we saw in the playoffs by McDavid was the single greatest effort in a losing cause possible. Yes, he lost. But so did every other candidate but Barkov. There are 31 other teams that lost. And 19 other players on the Oilers’ roster. McDavid willed Edmonton within a goal of the most sensational series comeback in the history of team sports. He broke a Gretzky record. In April, he became the fourth to 100 assists in a season. He stood behind the All-Star Game weekend, redesigned the skills event, and won it. He was the star of the Amazon series, revealing a stunning primal rage to win. He became the fourth-fastest to 1,000 points in 2024. He’s graduated into an upper-tier defensive player. And he still produced points at a rate equal to MacKinnon and Kucherov in the regular season. Only he added 42 points in an excruciating playoff run.
Connor McDavid is your 2024 NHL Player of the Year. 🎉
Follow @AdjustedHockey; visit www.adjustedhockey.com; data from Hockey-Reference, NHL.com