To mark the beginning of the 2024-25 regular season, NHL.com is running its first installment of the Trophy Tracker series. Today, we look at the race for the Hart Trophy, given annually to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team as voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.
The shelves on Connor McDavid's mantle are crowded.
He's a three-time winner of the Hart Trophy, which goes to the NHL's most valuable player. He's a five-time winner of the Art Ross Trophy as the League's regular season leading scorer. He has won the Rocket Richard Trophy as the League's leading goal-scorer in a season and four times has won the Ted Lindsay Award, which goes to the most outstanding player as voted on by fellow members of the NHL Players' Association. Last season, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers center, is NHL.com's choice to pick up some more individual hardware this season. He's the favorite among a panel of 16 voters to win the Hart Trophy for a fourth time. He received 11 first-place votes and 66 total voting points, edging Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche by 12 points.
"At the end of the day, I want to win a Stanley Cup," McDavid said, "and I want to win many of them."
Ah yes, the Stanley Cup. McDavid is a 27-year-old who already has his hardware, who, unless something drastic changes, will reach 1,000 points before he hits 700 games played (982 points in 645 games), but he has never won the Cup.
That's what is missing. And that's what this season, and the rest of McDavid's career, in fact, is all about.
"That's my desire, that's my goal, that's my dream," McDavid said. "That's what I'm after and I believe that the Edmonton Oilers have an opportunity to do that. That's my focus and that's what I'm looking forward to going after right now."
