MacKinnon deserves the Hart Trophy, but will he win it?

There’s no doubt that Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid are the best duo in the NHL right now. They combined for 207 points up until the recent shutdown, which is roughly 34% of all Edmonton Oilers points this season. Last season Draisaitl recorded a career best 105 points, which he has already surpassed in only 71 games this season recording 110 points. He slowed down somewhat in his last five games, producing only three points and none in the last three games.

Meanwhile, Connor McDavid has 97 points despite missing seven games this season and there were no signs of him slowing down in the last five games as he recorded 8 points, including a five point night against Nashville at the beginning of March.

All this is proof that if there was an award for best duo they’d certainly get it. Unfortunately The Hart Memorial Trophy is awarded to the “player judged most valuable to his team”. Player. Singular. Sorry lads.

For that there can only be one winner… Nathan MacKinnon.

The Colorado Avalanche center lost out on the award decided by the the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association two years ago when it was judged Taylor Hall somehow had a better season. I’m still trying to work that one out. I’ll admit it was probably close but 12 game winning goals versus seven should have been enough. It wasn’t. Apparently the reason given was because MacKinnon had a supporting cast consisting of Landeskog and Rantanen whereas the New Jersey Devils team Hall played on was less talented.

Well in that case we should just cancel the award this year and hand it to Nate now as he played large parts of the season without a supporting cast. Of his top-line teammates, Gabriel Landeskog missed 16 games while Mikko Rantanen has sat out 28 games. Second line center Nazem Kadri has also missed 19 games while the Avalanche have seen injuries this season to Cale Makar, Andre Burakovsky, Joonas Donskoi and Matt Calvert to name but a few. In fact, only Matt Nieto and Samuel Girard have played in all 70 games.

Despite this rotating door of injuries and line-mates MacKinnon has still contributed to nearly 15% of all Avalanche points. In fact, if there is one positive to this break for the Colorado Avalanche it is that it came at a time when MacKinnon has just been ruled out week to week with a lower body injury. The next closest teammate in terms of contribution is Cale Makar at 7%, which is less than Ryan Nugent-Hopkins who is behind Draisaitl and McDavid with 61 points and 10% of all Oilers points this season.

Makar shines in return as Av’s edge out Rangers

I’m not holding my breath that the members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association will do the right thing and vote for MacKinnon over Draisaitl, even using their skewed results from two years ago, but I can sleep comfortably knowing with him on the Avalanche a Stanley Cup isn’t too far off in the future. He’d probably much rather have that anyway.

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