Breaking down the top candidates for the Hart Trophy
We're about halfway through the NHL season at this point, and as such it feels like the right time to take a look at the current leaders for the league's various awards.
Over the next several articles, we'll examine the 10 leading candidates for each of the major awards. Today, we'll look at the Hart Trophy, given to the player most valuable to his team.
This award seems to have at least a little controversy with it every year, largely because the NHL's rules do a poor job of communicating what "value" is. By default, it has seemingly become an award for the guys with the most points, or sometimes the most goals and just a large number of assists, on a team that makes the playoffs. You occasionally get a Taylor Hall, who by no means led the league in scoring but had by far the most goals and points on an unexpectedly good team. You very occasionally get a Carey Price, an elite goalie who also single handedly helped a decidedly team make the playoffs. You almost never get a defenseman winning this award.
But because we have the basic parameters in place, we can at least take a pretty educated guess about who has positioned themselves well in the first half to make it into the top 10 at the end of the year.
Let's take a look at the 10 most likely candidates (presented in alphabetical order):
Leon Draisaitl, C, Edmonton Oilers
We'll start with your NHL goals leader halfway through the season. With 31 goals, Draisaitl is well ahead of any of the top scorers behind him, as the next-closest sits four back. He's also second in total points (without nearly as many empty-net points), third in points per game, posting really strong underlying numbers and playing above-average defense. Because Connor McDavid is "only" on pace for like 35 goals and 120 points (compared with Draisaitl's 60ish and 125ish), it's easy to see a world where voters get sick of just having McDavid in their top three and pivot to a different recent Oilers Hart winner.
Jack Eichel, C, Vegas Golden Knights
Eichel is another Pacific Division center who's already at 54 points, but where his candidacy really comes to life is the fact that Vegas is currently running away with the division lead and he is perceived as being an elite two-way center. The numbers don't necessarily bear that out, at least not more so than what Draisaitl or some other guys on this list have done to date, but the production is there even if the goals are not.
You also can't discount the fact that Eichel's style of play and talent level really stands out aesthetically as well. He just looks so impressive when you watch him, and to me that's where the dreaded "plus-minus" argument comes in. That's basically an eye-test stat, because you're seeing him be on the ice for a lot of goals and rarely get scored on. He's second in the league in plus-minus (plus-25, two behind Draisaitl), with Vegas scoring almost twice as many 5-on-5 goals as they're allowing with Eichel on the ice, and he has a point on about three-quarters of those Vegas goals. What's not to like?
Connor Hellebuyck, G, Winnipeg Jets
For me Hellebuyck is the clear No. 1 MVP of the first half. The best numbers for any goalie in the league, the goalie who plays the most, the goalie on the team that, as I write this, is third-best in the league despite some rather middling underlying numbers.
If we're being serious about what "value" means, who has been more valuable than this? The problem, obviously, is that goalies generally don't win this award. It's happened only once in the cap era, when Carey Price won it decade ago. But here's the thing for Hellebuyck: His numbers compare favorably with Price's run that year, and are right in line with where he was last year. He has as many shutouts as regulation losses. His team is undoubtedly better than that 2014-15 Canadiens roster. I don't think anyone would mistake this Jets team with a league-average goaltender for one of the best in the league; not that wins are the most important stat, but Winnipeg is well below .500 when he doesn't start. If he keeps this up in the second half, Hellebuyck deserves the award, and it shouldn't be all that close. Voters might not see it that way, but I feel like a lot of them will have Hellebuyck on their ballot even if he's not going to be their top pick.
Quinn Hughes, LD, Vancouver Canucks
The only thing that complicates this is Hughes' recent injury. But maybe his candidacy will be boosted by the fact that, as soon as he was forced out of the lineup, Vancouver has started to circle the drain so badly that they're apparently shopping their two best forwards.
The numbers are simple: When Hughes, who has 9-38—47 in 38 games, is on the ice, the Canucks play like the Harlem Globetrotters, and when he is off, they make the Washington Generals look like the Harlem Globetrotters. We shouldn't always put a lot of stock in WOWYs, but this team is beyond abysmal when he's on the bench, let alone on the shelf.
Much like Hellebuyck, Hughes plays a position that does not traditionally get much consideration for the Hart — the last defenseman to even be a finalist for it was Chris Pronger, back in 2000 — so I don't know how much consideration he'll get even before we factor in "Vancouver might have to sell and potentially miss the playoffs." But Hughes has elevated his game so much that he easily deserves to be top-three, and like Hellebuyck, will certainly get a lot of fourth- and fifth-place votes even if some voters are still scared off by the positional thing.
Kirill Kaprizov, LW, Minnesota Wild
He's experienced a little bit of a slowdown in production after a white-hot start and hasn't always been able to stay in the lineup, but Kaprizov is still one of the most valuable players in the league.
While his recent injury does muddy things, even with a bunch of games missed he's at 50 points (13th in the league) in just 34 games, is still tied for seventh in goals, and has his team cooking at a higher level than many probably expected. The voters are going to have a hard time ignoring him as long as the Wild make the playoffs, and it's easy to see why they would. Even if they're more willing to hear out non-forwards, he's an easy pick for the top five at a bare minimum.
Nikita Kucherov, RW, Tampa Bay Lightning
A year after winning the Art Ross, finishing second in the Hart voting, and registering 100 assists, Kucherov's scoring pace is down. How could it not be?
But his team is just as good as ever and only getting hotter as the season progresses. You could make a credible argument for a couple of players to be the Lightning's most valuable, but ultimately landing on the guy who's kind of pulling away from Brayden Point as the top scorer who's already seen as an MVP-caliber guy seems like the kind of things voters will want to do.
Nathan MacKinnon, C, Colorado Avalanche
MacKinnon just won the Hart (and the Ted Lindsay) last year and like a lot of NHL awards, voters like to keep things interesting by avoiding repeat picks as much as they can. Sadly for them, he might not be giving them much of a choice this year.
He leads the league in scoring and is threatening to be the third player to crack 100 assists in recent years. Each of the last two to do it got a ton of Hart consideration. So as much as voters might want to find an out here, there mostly isn't one. Does he have more empty-net (low-calorie) points than any other MVP candidate? You bet. But we're celebrating a certain goal chase this year, so…
Maybe, if they get desperate, we can point to the fact that he's not on pace for about 30 goals? Plus, he plays with two or three other elite players for the vast majority of his ice time, and that's always an easy ding. Maybe voters try to get creative and go with Mikko Rantanen, but now I'm really scrounging. I don't see how anyone could keep him out of their top six or so at worst.
Alex Ovechkin, LW, Washington Capitals
I've been thinking a lot about who is going to get the credit for Washington's resurgence, and it seems difficult to say for sure. Ovechkin isn't their leading scorer — that would be Dylan Strome, by a wide margin — and he hasn't been their most valuable all-around player. He also missed 16 games out of the team's first 39 before returning from a broken leg.
But if we're gonna talk about goalscoring rates (20 in 27 games), and if we're gonna talk about who's driving the conversation about this team (especially as their play slips a bit of late), and if we're gonna talk about whose mere presence is going to attract the media spotlight in the second half, it's Ovechkin and it's not even close. Easy to see how a guy who scores almost a goal a game at his age as he chases down an unbreakable record will be seen as a driving force behind the offense, especially because he still leads the team in goals (barely) despite all the time he missed.
Sam Reinhart, C, Florida Panthers
Reinhart may not have the scoring profile of some of the other guys on this list, and even scoring 57 goals last season didn't get him into the Hart top 10. But combining the fact that he's on track for another potential 50-goal season and is playing Selke-worthy defense (five shorthanded goals, as much or more than just one other team, not counting his own) during what is a slightly down year for Sasha Barkov while the reigning Cup winners stay relevant will get him into the top 10 this season. If you want to make the Matthew Tkachuk argument to me instead, I'll listen, because he certainly has more star power, and that matters to voters. But I think Reinhart's continued goal production has him in the lead right now.
Zach Werenski, LD, Columbus Blue Jackets
The way things are going, Columbus might end up being in the playoff conversation, and if they are at the end of the year, I think voters will be looking to praise the guy who drove that extremely unexpected success, even leaving aside the circumstances that arose over the summer. Werenski would be as good a pick for that player as any (though I would throw a lot of the credit Sean Monahan's way, as well).
Again, I know they don't give defensemen much consideration for this one, but he's in the same scoring ballpark as Cale Makar, with much less help. He plays more minutes than anyone in the league, 26:33 a night. And Columbus is scoring almost 60 percent of the 5-on-5 goals when he's on the ice. He's been awesome, though if you're a big believer in his long-term candidacy, I might encourage you to look at his underlying numbers. He's not pushing okay as much as you might like, but it's still a great year.
Add in the eff-you speech he gave about Patrik Laine's comments and how much being a Blue Jacket means to him? The narrative is right there and it's really strong. The fact that he's not even the best defenseman on this list won't help his candidacy, but people will understandably want to give him a lot of credit for his individual and team contributions, and he deserves at least that much.
Hart trophy midseason ranking
With all of the above having been said, here's how I would rank the 10 players listed here in terms of likelihood to win the Hart, based on both performance to this point and the odds they continue or improve on their current situations in the second half:
- Connor Hellebuyck
- Quinn Hughes
- Kirill Kaprizov
- Leon Draisaitl
- Nathan MacKinnon
- Nikita Kucherov
- Jack Eichel
- Sam Reinhart
- Alex Ovechkin
- Zach Werenski