This season's Hart belongs to Nikita Kucherov — the MVP award the league hands out yearly to whichever skater earns the most-valuable nod, this time covering 2025-26.
The Russian-born winger, a first-time honoree in 2019, now owns a pair of the trophies. Despite placing second in scoring across the league, he led all comers at 1.71 points each night. Within his own club, Tampa Bay, he sat atop the team in goals, in assists, and in overall production.
Last month, the trio of finalists was announced, with Kucherov joined by Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon.
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Holding a 42-point edge over his nearest teammate, Kucherov drove Tampa Bay to a ninth straight berth in the postseason. Per the league, that gap of 42 ranked as the second-widest between a club's two top scorers all year, surpassed only by the 56-point divide that split San Jose's pairing — Macklin Celebrini at 115 alongside Will Smith on 59.
The Lightning's standout up front posted a point or better across 60 of the 76 games he dressed for, leading the circuit in helpers at even strength (57) as well as in multi-helper showings (25). Beyond that, he became merely the 10th skater the league has ever seen with multiple 130-point years on his ledger, and ranks 17th-quickest in history at reaching the 1,000-point plateau (in 809 games), as well as the 1,100-point plateau (in 863).
Of the active crowd, only four players own more than one Hart, a group counting McDavid (3), Ovechkin (3), plus Crosby (2). From 198 ballots up for grabs, his 72 top-spot picks left him a narrow 10 points clear of McDavid. Tellingly, not once since the present scoring setup arrived for 1995-96 had every one of the trio of finalists drawn no less than a quarter of the first-place ballots.
Inside this year's Hart balloting
Screenshot: NHL.com
It was at Tampa's training rink that the trophy's longtime keeper, Phil Pritchard, sprang the surprise presentation on Kucherov.
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The sole Washington skater or goalie to land on any ballot was netminder Logan Thompson, whose lone fifth-place nod left him knotted for 23rd. Thompson — who missed out on a top-three placement in Vezina balloting — went 31-21-6 over the year, with a goals-against mark of 2.44, a save rate of .912, and four clean sheets. The 58 outings he featured in stood as the heaviest single-season workload of his career, exceeding his 2024-25 figure by 15.
Per MoneyPuck, no goaltender leaguewide bettered Thompson's 29.3 in goals prevented beyond expectation — a number unmatched by any keeper save Connor Hellebuyck since the 46.7 put up by Juuse Saros in 2022-23.
Beyond that, Thompson drew Lady Byng consideration too, which left him with backing spread over three separate trophies on the spring.