The Hart Trophy conversation starts and ends with Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon

It’s becoming very difficult to make a Hart Trophy case for anyone other than Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon

This year, the Hart Trophy case is pretty wide open. Ask five different hockey fans, you’ll probably get at least three different answers. Maybe even five. This is a bit confusing, as it’s pretty clear Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon has been the best player in the league. By extension, he has been the player most valuable to his team.

So why isn’t he getting more Hart Trophy love? My theory is the Avalanche aren’t in a huge market. They were historically bad last season, which means people generally haven’t been paying much attention to them. It’s a lazy excuse, but it’s probably true.

Let’s take a look at MacKinnon’s outstanding season, and why the Hart Trophy discussion starts and ends with him on top.

Scoring

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Admittedly, the strongest point for his candidacy is his scoring. But then again, scoring is kind of important. You can’t win games if you don’t score. And MacKinnon has been scoring at a very impressive rate. Strictly looking at points per game, he leads the NHL as of March 16 with a rate of 1.37.

Now, Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning is just behind him. However, a bit of context is required here. Kucherov is on a team that leads the NHL in goals scored (251). Meanwhile, MacKinnon plays for a team with 223 goals (seventh in the NHL).

Using points is a bit dishonest because of secondary assists. Some are meaningful. Other times, a player taps the puck and gets an assist. So let’s take a look at primary points (goals plus first assists).

MacKinnon leads the NHL in primary points per hour at even strength (2.65). He’s been driving the Avalanche offense and is having his finest season by a wide margin. Colorado put a lot of faith in their core by not moving MacKinnon or Gabriel Landeskog and both are paying them back for it. What’s more impressive is Nathan has stepped up his game in a huge way since the Avalanche traded Matt Duchene.

Even before you account for the latter’s eight games missed due to injury, Kucherov has been involved in about 36.2 percent of his team’s goals while MacKinnon has accounted for 38.1 percent.

Overall Play

However, scoring isn’t everything. MacKinnon has been very solid as a two-way player this season. He has been a net positive in puck possession with a relative even strength shot attempt percentage of 4.99 percent, tops on the Avalanche among forwards with at least 500 minutes.

Colorado is a far better team when MacKinnon is on the ice. At the end of the day, that’s a pretty effective way to know how good of a job you did. How much better is your team when you’re on the ice than when you’re off of it?

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Kucherov would be a mighty fine choice for the Hart Trophy. Especially if he gets to 100 points. But this is an award based on value, and it’s hard to argue anyone in the NHL has been more crucial to his team than MacKinnon.