The beautiful thing about making that kind of declarative statement about the 2023-24 MVP race? This might be the most “no wrong answers” Hart Trophy debate in recent memory.
Does Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon have an MVP case after a season of establishing career benchmarks and multiple point-per-game streaks and wowing us with his full-throttle skating? Absolutely.
Does Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews have a case after posting the highest single-season goal total since 1992-93 and leading the team with his 200-foot game? Absolutely.
Does Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid have a case after becoming only the fourth player in NHL history to tally 100 assists in a season, and resurrecting his team after a disastrous start? Absolutely.
A member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association could cast a vote for any of these players and it would be viewed as reasonable, no matter how much social media shaming arrives from the other candidates’ constituencies. Again, there aren’t any real “wrong answers” this season in the MVP race.
But Nikita Kucherov is the most correct one.
KUCHEROV ENTERS THE final game of the Lightning’s season at home against the Maple Leafs with 142 points in 80 games, putting him in position to win the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top point producer for the second time. His previous win was in 2018-19 with 128 points, the same season he won his first and only Hart Trophy.
Among the players on that particular Lightning team: J.T. Miller, Yanni Gourde, Ryan McDonagh, Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn and Tyler Johnson. Through trades, cap constraints and the expansion draft, the Lightning lost much of that stellar supporting cast — the backbone of Stanley Cup wins in 2020 and 2021. This Lightning squad had by far the shallowest depth of any under coach Jon Cooper. It got even shallower when defenseman Mikhail Sergachev went out with a broken leg after 34 games.
Their depth was always reliable in previous seasons. So was goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. The Vezina Trophy winner was out until Nov. 24 after a microdiscectomy to address a lumbar disk herniation. He hasn’t been himself all season since returning, posting a .900 save percentage and a very uncharacteristic negative-10.84 goals saved above expected, per Stathletes.
All of this is to say that the Lightning would be tabulating their draft lottery odds right now were it not for Kucherov. He is the reason they’re a playoff team.
That’s not hyperbole. That’s quantifiable:
Kucherov leads the NHL in percentage of team goals (50.35) in which he has a point through 80 games. MacKinnon was second (46.46%) and McDavid third (45.67%). Kucherov is attempting to become the seventh player in NHL history to factor into over 50% of his team’s goals in a season, joining McDavid, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr.
Kucherov is one assist away from joining that same elite company in another category: 100 assists in a single season. Sure, McDavid reached 100 first on Monday night, which took some of the shine off the accomplishment, but Kucherov has done it as a winger, which is a first. Kucherov now holds the NHL record for most assists in a single season by a winger, breaking the previous mark of 87 he shared with Jaromir Jagr.
As of Monday, Kucherov had the largest gap between a team’s leading and second-leading scorers. He’s 53 points ahead of center Brayden Point. The second-biggest gap is between the Rangers’ Panarin and Vincent Trocheck (43 points) and the third-biggest is between the Bruins’ Pastrnak and Brad Marchand (42 points). This metric has been used by voters in previous Hart races to illustrate “value.” Think of it this way: If the scoring canyon between Kucherov and Point were that of an individual player, it would be the equivalent to a Tyler Toffoli, Michael Bunting or Martin Necas entering Tuesday night’s games.
Kucherov has had one of the most remarkable road scoring seasons in NHL history. Kucherov went scoreless in only three of the Lightning’s 20 road wins. His 75 points on the road leads all NHL scorers, and is 15 points clear of second-place Panarin. Kucherov’s 54 assists on the road are the highest total since Gretzky’s 57 in 1990-91. He’s just two shy of McDavid’s mark of 77 last season, when the Oilers star won the Hart Trophy.
DESPITE THESE NUMBERS, I’m cognizant of the knocks on Kucherov’s candidacy.
Some are legit: The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn has called out Kucherov’s five-on-five play in relation to that of his MVP-worthy peers, and wrote that “his biggest issue at five-on-five [is] his defensive ability,” especially when compared to someone like Matthews.
But it was also noted by Luszczyszyn that Kucherov plays on the most porous defensive team among the candidates, too. While plus/minus should never be used in a serious discussion of hockey stats, it can offer a general snapshot of a player or team. In 80 games, Kucherov is a plus-10, second on the Lightning behind Victor Hedman (plus-18).
Tampa Bay has only four players better than a plus-5. The Avalanche have 10. The Leafs have 15.
Other criticisms are … less legit. I’ve heard that Matthews flirting with 70 goals is more impressive than hitting 100 assists because there are “secondary assists” but not “secondary goals.” It’s a fair point, but it doesn’t really apply to Kucherov or McDavid: over 60% of their assists are primary. Also, they don’t make the scoring rules, at last check.
Then there’s the empty-net points argument.
Did you know Kucherov set an NHL record this season? Through 80 games, Kucherov has tallied 14 points with his opponents’ net empty. That’s the highest total of empty-net points in a single season in NHL history.
Some have used this as a cudgel against Kucherov’s point totals, claiming empty-net points are inferior. But all it tells me is that despite Kucherov’s alleged defensive deficiencies, Cooper feels comfortable enough to have him out on the ice when the net is empty and the opponent is desperate. And that Kucherov has helped the Lightning close out a good share of games.
(To be honest, I had a Pavlovian response of disgust when I heard that “empty netters” argument. I still remember when it was used to take Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin down a notch, before the hockey world decided en masse that it was OK because it boosted his numbers in the Gretzky record chase. At least that’s my theory.)
Of course, when discussing Kucherov’s critics, we have to address the surly elephant in the room: The impression that he left at this year’s All-Star Game in Toronto.
You may recall Kucherov getting boos from the fans and jeers from the media for dogging his way through a stickhandling event at the skills competition. Kucherov hasn’t always been a teddy bear with the media or a saint on the ice. Kyle Okposo, one of the most universally liked players in the NHL, called Kucherov “a terrific player, but he’s dirty as well,” which is as close to a scathing critique as you’ll get from Kyle Okposo.
I hope none of this factors into the Hart Trophy voting. It’s not a popularity contest. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
SO KUCHEROV DESERVES to win MVP. I’m not convinced he will win MVP.
MacKinnon had 77% of the first-place votes in ESPN’s NHL Awards Watch for April, the final canvassing of actual voters before the ballots are cast. Even if some of that support wavers as other players reach statistical milestones, it probably won’t be enough to erode his lead.
There’s also an argument for MacKinnon that can’t be made for MVP aspirants like Kucherov, Matthews or McDavid: The Avalanche star has never won the MVP before. So it’s “his turn,” especially in the eyes of some voters who feel he should have won in 2017-18, when Taylor Hall‘s late-season heroics for the New Jersey Devils earned him the Hart.
Simplistic as that might sound, the notion of “spreading the wealth” does factor into awards voting. There has been only one player to win the Hart Trophy in consecutive seasons during this century: Ovechkin from 2007-08 to 2008-09, scoring 121 goals over those two seasons.
If the voters decide MacKinnon deserves his Hart Trophy, that’s fine. Same for Matthews or McDavid or Panarin or Pastrnak or Quinn Hughes or Josi or Hellebuyck. I wish I could spit fire and vitriol about one of these players being counterfeit or an abhorrent choice — maybe if one of them finished a point outside the playoffs, I’d get there.
But like I said, it’s a tribute to their performances and where the game is today that there are only right answers this season.
Mine is Kucherov, for the reasons stated here. It’s a special season from a special player, and the Lightning wouldn’t be anywhere near the Stanley Cup playoffs without him.
TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.
After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”
Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”
As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.
“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”
The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.
Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.
“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”
Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.
“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freemanwas scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.
The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”
For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.
Sportico places the value of the franchise and its team-related holdings at $4.2 billion.
Sixth Street’s investment, reportedly approved by Major League Baseball on Monday, will go toward upgrades to Oracle Park and the Giants’ training facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Mission Rock, the team’s real estate development project located across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.
Giants president and CEO Larry Baer called it the “first significant investment in three decades” and said the money would not be spent on players.
“This is not about a stockpile for the next Aaron Judge,” Baer told the New York Times. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”
Sixth Street is the primary owner of National Women’s Soccer League franchise Bay FC. It also has investments in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
“We believe in the future of San Francisco, and our sports franchises like the Giants are critical ambassadors for our city of innovation, showcasing to the world what’s only made possible here,” Sixth Street co-founder and CEO Alan Waxman said in the news release. “We believe in Larry and the leadership team’s vision for this exciting new era, and we’re proud to be partnering with them as they execute the next chapter of San Francisco Giants success.”
Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, Sixth Street has assets totaling $75 billion, according to Front Office Sports.
JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn was scratched from the lineup for their exhibition game on Tuesday because of soreness in his right wrist.
Winn was replaced by Jose Barrero in the Grapefruit League matchup with the Miami Marlins, with the regular-season opener nine days away. Winn, who was a 2020 second-round draft pick by the Cardinals, emerged as a productive everyday player during his rookie year in 2024. He batted .267 with 15 home runs, 11 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in 150 games and was named as one of three finalists for the National League Gold Glove Award that went to Ezequiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies.
Winn had minor surgery after the season to remove a cyst from his hand. In 14 spring training games, he’s batting .098 (4 for 41) with 12 strikeouts.