McDavid of Oilers wins Hart Trophy as NHL most valuable player

Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers won the Hart Trophy unanimously voted as the most valuable player in the NHL on Tuesday.

McDavid received each of the 100 first-place votes after he led the NHL with 105 points (33 goals, 72 assists), 21 ahead of teammate Leon Draisaitl. McDavid led the NHL in assists, even-strength points (68) and power-play points (37), and was second in goals and game-winning goals (11). It was the third time he led the NHL in scoring (100 points in 2016-17; 108 in 2017-18).
He is the second unanimous Hart Trophy winner in the 97-year history of the award, which was first presented in 1923-24. Wayne Gretzky earned each of the 63 first-place votes in 1981-82, following his 92-goal, 212-point season.
"It's just special to win the award," McDavid said Wednesday. "I've been able to do it twice now (2016-17) and it's equally sweet, I would say. I guess maybe it's just a little feather in the cap to do it unanimously, and obviously anytime you're in the same breath as Wayne Gretzky, obviously you're doing something right. So I appreciate the writers viewing it that way and just honored to win the award, and to have it unanimous is just another feather on top, I guess."
McDavid helped the Oilers (35-19-2) finish second in the Scotia North Division and advance to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when they were swept by the Winnipeg Jets in the best-of-7 Stanley Cup First Round.
"My teammates are everything," McDavid said. "I really wouldn't be anywhere without them. … We had a special group this year, and obviously we didn't do what we wanted to do, but still so fun to be a part of and get Edmonton and the fans of Edmonton excited again for what's to come. Obviously not possible without [my teammates] and so lucky to be part of a great group."

The Edmonton captain scored at least one point in 45 of 56 regular-season games and had 33 multipoint games, including 18 with at least three points. The Oilers were 33-11-1 when McDavid scored a point and 2-8-1 when he didn't.
"Our team is just getting better as we go along here," McDavid. "We just had so many guys take the next step and I'm just a part of that. Obviously if we're all continuing to do that, we're going to go and do some special things in this league."
McDavid also won the Ted Lindsay Award as the most outstanding player in voting by the NHL Players' Association.
"I'm very grateful to the players for voting for me and recognizing me that way," he said. "And obviously for the writers to have voted me for the Hart, that's the prestigious one. That one is so special, so for the writers to recognize me obviously means a lot to me as well. It's hard to distinguish between the two of them, but I'm very grateful."
McDavid was third in Hart Trophy voting in 2018-19, behind Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins. McDavid is the second straight Oilers player to win the award after Draisaitl won last season, and is the second Edmonton player to win it multiple times. Gretzky won it eight straight seasons from 1979-80 to 1986-87.
"Lastly, I'd just like to thank all the health care workers that helped us through such a difficult year and made our season possible," McDavid said. "… And obviously all the front line health workers across Canada and across the world, It wouldn't have been possible without them and together, we're fighting this thing off (COVID-19) and [getting] back to normal life."
Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews was second and Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon was third as the other finalists for the award, which was voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association before the postseason began.
Matthews led the NHL with 41 goals in 52 games and scored 66 points and had a plus-21 rating. He scored 12 game-winning goals, which led the NHL.
MacKinnon was eighth in the NHL with 65 points (20 goals, 45 assists) and was plus-22 in 48 games
2021 Hart Trophy voting
Points (1st-5th)
1. Connor McDavid, EDM 1,000 (100-0-0-0-0)
2. Auston Matthews, TOR 600 (0-69-19-6-4)
3. Nathan MacKinnon, COL 313 (0-6-40-19-14)
4. Sidney Crosby, PIT 223 (0-11-13-20-21)
5. Brad Marchand, BOS 134 (0-6-5-16-19)
6. Aleksander Barkov, FLA 125 (0-3-8-18-10)
7. Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL 57 (0-2-2-8-9)
8. Leon Draisaitl, EDM 44 (0-2-3-3-6)
9. Mark Stone, VGK 39 (0-0-4-4-7)
10. Mikko Rantanen, COL 15 (0-1-1-1-0)
11. Juuse Saros, NSH 14 (0-0-1-2-3)
12. Cale Makar, COL 10 (0-0-2-0-0)
13. Adam Fox, NYR 5 (0-0-1-0-0)
13. Jonathan Huberdeau, FLA 5 (0-0-1-0-0)
15. Patrick Kane, CHI 4 (0-0-0-1-1)
15. Kirill Kaprizov, MIN 4 (0-0-0-1-1)
17. Sebastian Aho, CAR 3 (0-0-0-1-0)
18. Ryan O'Reilly, STL 2 (0-0-0-0-2)
19. Connor Hellebuyck, WPG 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
19. Mitchell Marner, TOR 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
19. David Pastrnak, BOS 1 (0-0-0-0-1)
Points allocation: 10-7-5-3-1 (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th)
NHL.com staff writer Tim Campbell contributed to this report