Nathan MacKinnon was a runner-up for the Hart Trophy in 2017-18 and 2019-20. He finished third in the voting the year after that.
But on Thursday, he swept the vote of the writers and his fellow players to win both the Hart Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award at the 2024 NHL Awards. And you can’t say that it wasn’t well-deserved.
In a regular season where Nikita Kucherov had the best season of his career, Connor McDavid reached 100 assists, Sidney Crosby carried the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Auston Matthews was one goal away from 70, Nathan MacKinnon stood out.
The Colorado Avalanche superstar finished the regular season with 140 points in 82 games. For that, he won the Hart Trophy as most valuable to his team and the Ted Lindsay, given to the most outstanding player in the league.
MacKinnon is the 24th player in NHL history to win the Hart and Ted Lindsay in the same season, and it wasn’t all that close.
MacKinnon received 137 of the 194 first-place votes, landing on 1,740 points. Nikita Kucherov finished as the runner-up with 50 first-place votes and 1,269 points.
But as always, the voting has stirred up ire among fans, especially regarding some details.
Many reacted to the fact that Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers had more first votes than Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid combined.
”Panarin more first place votes than Matthews or McDavid: I want want they’re on,” one user said on social media.
But what had most people reacting with shock was the fact that Nathan MacKinnon received a 5th-place vote despite the season he had.
”Hahaha who gave Nathan a 5th place vote? This is why we should be glad there’s no absolute monarchy,” one said.
”Whoever the one person that had Mak at 5th and the 11 people that had Kuch at 5th were should NEVER be allowed to vote again,” another said.
”Everyone is upset about those 5th place votes but failed to realize that MacKinnon was completely left off of one ballot, and Kucherov was left off of three,” a third added.
Most fans felt that Kucherov overall was disrespected.
”For real — totally get putting Kuch second or maybe third (although personally think that he should have been easily first), but 11 people putting him 5th is absolutely sickening,” one said.
