Jack Buckard
Staff Writer
The National Hockey League, just like all of the other leagues across the nation, holds an awards show at the end of the year to celebrate great seasons and individual accomplishments. The MVP award in the NHL is called the Hart Memorial Trophy. While the selection should not be difficult, this year is bringing up heated debates on who should win it, from veteran captains to new rookies.
In most other leagues, the MVP awards normally goes to the best player in the league, or who had the most points. In the NHL, those two would likely be either Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid winning it each year, but that isn’t the case. The definition given to the trophy by the league is, “the player judged most valuable to his team”. Therefore, Crosby or McDavid likely will not win it each year, with their respective teams have other great players around them, so it they aren’t deemed the most valuable. This is where the debate for this years selection comes from. For months on end, Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov has been the leader in the Hart Trophy ballot, until now. Kucherov has stopped producing like he did in the beginning and McDavid has overtaken the points lead in the league. Now, his name is in the forefront. However, the big talking point here is that McDavid’s team, the Oilers, are one of the worst in the league. He is racking up points, but is not helping them get into the playoffs. The statement, “the player judged most valuable to his team”, is now being interpreted as, “a good player is having a great season and is getting their team unexpectedly into the playoffs.”
This now means that other player such as Nathan Mackinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings, Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers, and a handful of others. These players have seemed to single-handedly pushed their teams to the next level, while the points leader is just assisting goals that lead to nothing now. The debate is raging and will ultimately come down to the league’s journalists, who decide the winner. Now the question is, who do you think should win?
