The National Hockey League announced this evening that Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon was selected as the winner of both the Hart Memorial Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award for the 2023-24 season. The honors are awarded to the most valuable player to his team in the NHL and the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA)’s Most Outstanding Player, respectively. The Hart Trophy winner is decided by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association (PHWA), while the Ted Lindsay award is voted by the NHLPA at the end of the 2023-24 regular season. MacKinnon received 137 of the 194 first-place votes for the Hart Trophy.
2023-24 is the sixth consecutive season the same player won the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Awards. MacKinnon, 28, finished second in League scoring with 140 points (51g/89a) in 82 games, breaking the single-season franchise scoring record of 139 points set by Peter Stastny in 1981-82. The centerman reached the 50-goal plateau for the first time in his career and his 87 helpers were also a personal best and the most in a season since the Avalanche relocated. The 51g/89a scoring line made MacKinnon just the second NHL player in the last 25 years to reach 50-plus goals and 85-plus assists in a season, joining Connor McDavid in 2022-23 (64g/89a).
The record-breaking 2023-24 earned MacKinnon a spot on the NHL’s Postseason First All-Star Team. He’s the first Avalanche to take home First All-Star Team honors since Cale Makar in 2021-22 and the first forward since Joe Sakic in 2003-04. It’s the fourth time MacKinnon has received Postseason All-Star Team recognition, following a Second All-Star Team nods in 2019-20 and 2017-18 as well as an All-Rookie Team choice in 2013-14.
The Halifax, Nova Scotia native notched a league-leading 44 multi-point games to break Peter Stastny’s franchise record of 42 set in 1981-82. He also led the NHL with 92 even-strength points – a franchise record and the most by an NHL player since Jaromir Jagr had 95 for the 1995-96 Penguins – as well as a franchise-record 89 points on home ice. The 89 home points marked the highest total by an NHL player in his own rink since Mario Lemieux had 104 points in 1995-96. At the beginning of his home slate, MacKinnon found the scoresheet in 35 consecutive contests at Ball Arena which goes down as the second-longest home point streak in NHL history behind Wayne Gretzky notching a point in all 40 of his home games in 1988-89. MacKinnon recording at least a point in 39 of the 41 home games is tied for the second-most in a season with a point (Wayne Gretzky, 40, 1988-89 and 39, 1985-86). The centerman also posted a 21-game home assist streak from Dec. 10–March 24, one short of the NHL record set by Nikita Kucherov in 2022-23.
MacKinnon recorded two 19-game point streaks in 2023-24, the longest two such streaks in the NHL this season making him the first player in NHL history to register two different point streaks of at least 19 games in the same campaign. It marked the first time since Robert Lang in 2003-04 that a player finished with the top-two point streaks in a single campaign. The point streaks helped garner MacKinnon NHL Star of the Month recognition on multiple occasions, beginning with First Star for December and January – the first Avalanche to earn the honor in consecutive months – as well as the Second Star for March. MacKinnon also received a weekly award from the League when he was tabbed the NHL’s First Star of the Week on Dec. 17 and again on March 10.
MacKinnon was a Team Captain at the 2024 NHL All-Star Game on Feb. 3 in Toronto, Ontario. It was his seventh All-Star Game selection, joining Joe Sakic (13 times), and Peter Forsberg as the only players to be named to an All-Star Game seven times with the Avalanche/Nordiques franchise. All of MacKinnon’s selections came in succession and trails only Sakic (eight) for the most consecutive selections in franchise history.
A four-time Hart Trophy finalist, MacKinnon scored four goals in two different contests (Dec. 21 vs. Ottawa and Jan. 24 vs. Washington) to become the first NHL player with two four-goal games in a season since Alex Ovechkin in 2007-08. His Dec. 21 performance was the first since the franchise relocated to Denver that an Avalanche scored four goals in a game, which included his 300th career tally. In the month of December, MacKinnon led the league with a franchise-record 29 points and followed that up with a league-best 26 points in January. The back-to-back calendar months made MacKinnon the second Avalanche player to pace the circuit in scoring in consecutive months and the third NHL player in the last 10 seasons to do it (Connor McDavid in February/March 2023 and Patrick Kane (three straight) in November 2015 through January 2016).
In the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, MacKinnon registered 14 points (4g/10a) in 11 games to rank tied for second on the Avalanche in points. The centerman also shared the team-lead in assists, ranked tied for fourth in goals and second in power-play points with seven over the course of Colorado’s 11-game postseason run. MacKinnon began the playoffs by finding the scoresheet in each of his first six games, including an assist in each of them and a multi-point performance in five of those six showings. The playoff-opening six-game assist streak was both tied for the third-longest in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs and in Avalanche/Nordiques history. His goal in Game 1 of the First Round marked MacKinnon’s 1,000th career point in both the regular season and playoffs combined. The 14 points improved MacKinnon’s career playoff point total to 114 (48g/66a) in 88 games, a 1.30 points per game figure that ranks third in NHL history among those with at least 75 games played.
MacKinnon’s 154 combined regular season and playoff points (55g/99a) in 2023-24 are tied for the second-highest total in a single campaign in franchise history. Joe Sakic also had 154 in 1995-96 and Peter Stastny holds the franchise record of 157 in 1981-82. Since 1997-98, McDavid (2021-24) and Nikita Kucherov (2023-24) are the only other NHL players to clear 150 combined regular season and playoff points in a campaign.
The first overall pick in the 2013 NHL Draft, MacKinnon was also a finalist for the Hart Trophy in 2018 (second), 2020 (second) and 2021 (third). He won the 2020 Lady Byng Award and 2014 Calder Trophy and finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting last season. Now having completed his 11th NHL season, MacKinnon has registered 899 points (335g/564a) in 791 regular-season games, ranking fourth on the franchise’s all-time scoring list. The 6-foot, 200-pound center is one of four players in Avalanche/Nordiques history to rank in the top-5 in goals, assists and points with the franchise (Sakic, Peter Stastny and Michel Goulet).
