Avs superstar Nathan MacKinnon snubbed from Hart Trophy finalists

Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon won’t be winning the Hart Trophy, given to the NHL’s MVP, in back-to-back years.

What’s shocking, though, is he didn’t even finish in the top-3 of the voting.

That’s what we found out on Thursday when the league released the finalists.

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Leon Draisaitl, Connor Hellebuyck, and Nikita Kucherov are finalists for the Hart Memorial Trophy, awarded annually "to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team." 🏆 pic.twitter.com/udt1LXhSQP

— NHL (@NHL) May 1, 2025

Look, Leon Draisaitl, Connor Hellebuyck and Nikita Kucherov are all great players, but Nathan MacKinnon kept the Avalanche afloat through an insane season in which GM Chris MacFarland made nine trades.

MacKinnon was second in the NHL in points with 116, even though he missed the final three games of the regular season for precautionary reasons. Kucherov led the way with 121 points, while Draisaitl had 10 fewer than MacKinnon with 106. MacKinnon and Kucherov also topped the league in assists with 84 each, nine ahead of the next closest man.

And the tricky part about Hellebuyck is goaltenders have their own award in the Vezina Trophy. He’s certainly worthy of that, based strictly on regular season play, but an argument could be made goalies shouldn’t steal position players spots for the MVP.

The polls throughout the season showed Nathan MacKinnon had a good chance to win back-to-back Hart Trophies, the first player to do it since Washington star Alex Ovechkin 16 years ago.

But that won’t be happening, as MacKinnon didn’t finish high enough to even earn a nomination. We’ll find out at some point in June who won the MVP and will see the final voting results. It would be a shock if MacKinnon wasn’t fourth.

The good news is he and teammate Cale Makar are both finalists for the Ted Lindsay Award, given to the best guy in the NHL as voted on by the players. The Hart Trophy is voted on by the media, so you can guess which one MacKinnon would rather win.

Plus, he’s chasing Stanley Cups, not MVPs. The Avalanche have a tall task at hand, currently trailing 3-2 in their Round 1 series against the Dallas Stars with Game 6 later on Thursday night.

If Nathan MacKinnon can help them win two straight games and advance to Round 2, this snub will quickly be forgotten.

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