Connor McDavid Is Nominated For The Hart Trophy Again

Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov and Connor McDavid are nominated for the 2019 Hart Trophy. The Hart Memorial Trophy is otherwise known as the MVP Award, awarded to “the player most valuable to his team”.

Connor McDavid is looking to win his second MVP award in June. Winner of the league MVP award in 2017, McDavid finished this season with 116 points (41-75-116). 116 points is good for second in overall scoring this year. Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov finished atop the NHL with 128 total points, while Sidney Crosby finished tied for sixth with 100 points.

Clearly, anyone who watches the game would argue that Connor McDavid is the most valuable player to his team. The Oilers fumbled their way to a 79 point season, they’d almost certainly be a 59 point team without Connor McDavid atop the first line. The Oilers scored 232 goals on the season, which means that Connor McDavid had a hand in exactly half of all the goals by either scoring the goal or assisting on the goal.

That’s an incredible stat. One player is responsible for literally half of the offence.

To compare, the Tampa Bay Lightning scored a league leading 325 goals. Kucherov had a hand in just over 39% of Tampa Bay’s goals with his league leading 128 points. Sidney Crosby’s 100 points gets him in for about 37% of Pittsburgh’s scoring. All fine numbers, but McDavid dwarfs those numbers.

So he’s going to win MVP hands down, right? Yeah, that’s up for debate. There’s a bit of an unwritten rule that MVPs don’t get awarded to players on non-playoff clubs. The last time it happened was over 30 years ago when Mario Lemieux took it in 1987-88. The Penguins finished last in the Patrick Division that season with 81 points. Lemieux took the award in a landslide, winning over 90% of the first place votes.

Connor McDavid is the obvious choice. Will he win his second league MVP?