TAMPA, FLORIDA - APRIL 30: Nikita Kucherov #86 of the Tampa Bay Lightning reacts after his team was defeated by the Florida Panthers in Game Five of the First Round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amalie Arena on April 30, 2025 in Tampa, Florida.

Lightning's Kucherov wins 2nd career Hart, beating McDavid, MacKinnon

Michael Bradburn
4 hours ago
Mike Carlson / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Tampa Bay Lightning star Nikita Kucherov was awarded the Hart Trophy on Thursday as MVP of the 2025-26 NHL season, beating out Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid and Colorado Avalanche's Nathan MacKinnon.

It's the second career Hart Trophy for Kucherov, who previously won it in 2018-19. The six-time All-Star finished second in the league this year with 130 points in 76 games.

Here's how each candidate's numbers stacked up this season for the top three scorers in the league:

Player GP G A P
McDavid 82 48 90 138
Kucherov 76 44 86 130
MacKinnon 80 53 74 127

Kucherov's Lightning teammate Andrei Vasilevskiy also claimed hardware earlier this offseason, winning the Vezina Trophy as the league's best goaltender.

It was an unbelievably close race between the three finalists, with only 10 voting points separating Kucherov and McDavid.

Young San Jose Sharks phenom Macklin Celebrini finished just outside the finalists in fourth while Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki claimed the final first-place vote and placed fifth.

Here's how the ballots submitted by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association were tallied:

Rank Player Points 1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th
1 Kucherov 1436 72-60-52-12-0
2 McDavid 1426 68-62-56-10-2
3 MacKinnon 1297 52-54-69-17-3
4 Macklin Celebrini 625 5-20-18-103-36
5 Nick Suzuki 102 1-0-0-19-35
6 David Pastrnak 82 0-0-1-11-44
7 Zach Werenski 53 0-0-0-10-23
8 Cole Caufield 51 0-2-1-6-14
9 Rasmus Dahlin 16 0-0-0-3-7
10 Vasilevskiy 12 0-0-1-1-4
11 Moritz Seider 8 0-0-0-2-2
T12 Sidney Crosby 5 0-0-0-1-2
T12 Cale Makar 5 0-0-0-1-2
14 Jason Robertson 5 0-0-0-0-5
15 Lane Hutson 4 0-0-0-1-1
16 Matthew Schaefer 4 0-0-0-0-4
17 Scott Wedgewood 3 0-0-0-1-0
T18 Quinn Hughes 2 0-0-0-0-2
T18 Kirill Kaprizov 2 0-0-0-0-2
T18 Jeremy Swayman 2 0-0-0-0-2
T18 Tage Thompson 2 0-0-0-0-2
T18 Dan Vladar 2 0-0-0-0-2
T23 Jack Hughes 1 0-0-0-0-1
T23 Gabriel Landeskog 1 0-0-0-0-1
T23 Ilya Sorokin 1 0-0-0-0-1
T23 Logan Thompson 1 0-0-0-0-1
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