MacKinnon of Avalanche wins Hart Trophy as NHL MVP | NHL.com

LAS VEGAS — Nathan MacKinnon won the Hart Trophy as the NHL Awards on Thursday.

The Colorado Avalanche center was voted as the player most valuable to his team by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

MacKinnon also on Thursday won the Ted Linsday Award, which is given annually to the most outstanding player in the League as voted by fellow members of the NHL Players’ Association.

The 28-year-old was second in the NHL with 140 points (51 goals, 89 assists) in 82 games.

In addition to leading the Avalanche in goals, assists and points, his 51 goals were fourth in the NHL, and his 48 power-play points (10 goals, 38 assists) were second to Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning (53).

“It’s the consistency in his preparation,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said in April when the Hart finalists were announced. “[He] takes care of his game first, but there’s no question that his leadership has evolved over the eight years that I’ve been with him. I think when you get your game to a spot that you feel comfortable with as a young player and then understand how important winning is and what it takes to get there, then you start trying to help everyone else around you. He’s certainly done that.

“He’s branched out and evolved as a leader of our team. Some of the things are still very consistent, the way he leads by example, the way he prepares himself and helps prepare our team for our opponents. Those parts of his DNA have always been there, but there’s no question that he’s got a bigger-picture outlook on the game now than he did when I first came (in 2016).”

It was the second time in MacKinnon’s NHL career and second straight season with at least 100 points after he had 111 (42 goals, 69 assists) in 2022-23.

MacKinnon led the NHL with 405 shots on goal and had a home point streak of 35 games (77 points; 29 goals, 48 assists) to start the season, the second longest in NHL history behind Wayne Gretzky, who had a 40-game run for the Los Angeles Kings in 1988-89.

He is the third Avalanche player to win the Hart Trophy; Peter Forsberg won in 2002-03, and current team president Joe Sakic won in 2000-01.

The four-time Hart Finalist, MacKinnon was a runner-up in 2017-18 to Taylor Hall of the New Jersey Devils, and Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers in 2019-20 and finished third in the voting in 2020-21 behind winner Connor McDavid of the Oilers and Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

McDavid, who won the award last season, and Kucherov were the other Hart finalists.

Colorado (50-25-7) finished third in the Central Division this season.

2023-24 Hart Memorial Trophy Voting

Points    (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th)
1. Nathan MacKinnon, COL    1740    (137-47-8-0-1)
2. Nikita Kucherov, TBL    1269    (50-77-30-23-11)
3. Connor McDavid, EDM    845    (1-28-86-67-8)
4. Auston Matthews, TOR    756    (2-33-53-73-21)
5. Artemi Panarin, NYR    175    (3-1-7-15-58)
6. Connor Hellebuyck, WPG    104    (1-4-3-7-30)
7. Quinn Hughes, VAN    62    (0-1-4-3-26)
8. David Pastrnak, BOS    41    (0-2-0-4-15)
9. Sidney Crosby, PIT    38    (0-1-3-1-13)
10. Roman Josi, NSH    8    (0-0-0-0-8)
11. J.T. Miller, VAN    3    (0-0-0-1-0)
t-12. Sebastian Aho, CAR    1    (0-0-0-0-1)
      Charlie Lindgren, WSH    1    (0-0-0-0-1)
      Sam Reinhart, FLA    1    (0-0-0-0-1)