Kucherov Takes Over the Hart Race in the Final Week, and It's a Three-Man Battle
The 2025-26 NHL regular season is down to its final days, and the awards race is as tight as it gets. Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning has seized the lead for the Hart Trophy, ending Nathan MacKinnon's four-month reign atop the voting in the most dramatic fashion possible. The MVP race is now a photo finish between three absolute superstars.
Kucherov's Dominant Stretch Down the Stretch
Kucherov earned roughly 50% of the first-place votes in the final Awards Watch tally, pulling ahead at exactly the right moment. Entering Sunday's action, he had 128 points in 74 games to lead the entire NHL with a 1.73 points-per-game average. That's insane. He was 41 points ahead of the Lightning's next highest scorer Jake Guentzel, and he did it in six fewer games.
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👉 Claim Your Free $10 at KalshiThis isn't Kucherov's first rodeo at the top either. He last won the Hart Trophy in 2019 and was a finalist last season. But this run feels different. The Lightning have dealt with so many key injuries and absences all year, and Kucherov has been the sole engine keeping them afloat. One voter put it perfectly: "The Lightning aren't comfortably in a playoff spot with well upwards of 100 points without Nikita Kucherov."
MacKinnon's Fall and McDavid's Emergence
MacKinnon held the lead for four months straight, but both Kucherov and Connor McDavid have now passed him at the finish line. McDavid sits second in the voting this month, keeping the race impossibly close. One voter summed up the chaos: "This is the tightest Hart race I've ever voted on. Felt all season this was Nathan MacKinnon's to lose and, well, Kucherov and Connor McDavid have both passed him at this point. The ultimate photo finish here."
The Hart Trophy voters have their ballots locked in, and the decision is sweating itself out. This final week is it. Whatever happens in these last games could decide everything.
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