{"id":537026,"date":"2026-04-02T18:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T18:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537026\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T18:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T18:31:13","slug":"is-avalanches-mackinnon-a-shoo-in-for-the-hart-trophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537026\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Avalanche\u2019s MacKinnon a shoo-in for the Hart Trophy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nathan MacKinnon continues to dominate on the ice. In his last five games, the Colorado Avalanche<\/a> forward has five goals and two assists, including his 50th goal of the season in the Avalanche\u2019s 8-6 loss to the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> Wednesday night. <\/p>\n

MacKinnon leads the NHL in goals with 50 and is one shy of tying a career-high 51 he recorded in 2023-24. His 121 points are tied with Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> forward Nikita Kucherov for second in the NHL and are just four back of Edmonton Oilers\u2019 captain Connor McDavid for the most in the league. <\/p>\n

However, what may be most impressive is how MacKinnon has led the Avalanche to a 49-15-10 record with 108 points, ranked first in the Central Division<\/a>, the Western Conference<\/a> and the entire NHL<\/a>. At this pace, Colorado will face the team in the second Wildcard spot in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. <\/p>\n

On Thursday\u2019s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE<\/a>, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss MacKinnon\u2019s dominance and if him winning the Hart Trophy is a lock at this point. <\/p>\n

Tyler Yaremchuk: MacKinnon recorded his second-career 50-goal season and he is a -110 favorite to win the Hart Trophy. It\u2019s basically MacKinnon or the field. <\/p>\n

What\u2019re your thoughts on MacKinnon hitting 50 and if you had a first-place vote, would it be Nate?<\/p>\n

Carter Hutton: I think it\u2019s been a push in post-Olympics. If you think about how things went for him and Canada at the Olympics, this guy has been an absolute dog. He\u2019s got a great hockey team in front of him. <\/p>\n

As for the Hart race, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s all him. I still think Nikita Kucherov is in the hunt, even though there\u2019s so little runway left. It\u2019s been that battle back and forth with MacKinnon and Kucherov. I still think Connor McDavid has a little runway. <\/p>\n

I think -110 is fair for MacKinnon to win the Hart, but that being said \u2026 if Colorado is in a safe spot where they don\u2019t need their stars to play, or if Edmonton is still trying to win the division, maybe you see more McDavid. <\/p>\n

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here\u2026<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan MacKinnon continues to dominate on the ice. In his last five games, the Colorado Avalanche forward has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-537026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116336544223299981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}