Kucherov Wins Second Hart Trophy by Ten Points
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- Nikita Kucherov won his second Hart Trophy as NHL MVP, earning 1,436 points and 72 first‑place votes, beating Connor McDavid by ten points.
- Connor McDavid placed second with 1,426 points and a top‑five finish on all 198 ballots, while Nathan MacKinnon was third with 1,297 points and 52 first‑place votes.
- Hart Trophy voting was the third‑closest in three decades and, for the first time since 1995‑96, all three finalists captured at least 25% of first‑place votes.
- Nikita Kucherov posted 44 goals, 86 assists for 130 points in 76 games (1.71 points per game), ranking second in league scoring and assists behind McDavid.
- Lightning finished second in the Atlantic Division with 106 points, while teammate Andrei Vasilevskiy won the Vezina Trophy and coach Jon Cooper earned the Jack Adams Award, completing a rare triple‑award sweep not seen since 1976‑77.
- Nikita Kucherov became the third player to win the Hart Trophy with a seven‑year gap between wins, joining Jean Beliveau and Sidney Crosby.
Why it matters: The Lightning benefit from a historic triple‑award haul, reinforcing the franchise’s elite status, while the razor‑thin margin illustrates how tightly contested the MVP race was among the league’s top three forwards, with Kucherov edging McDavid by just ten points overall.
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