Every Hart Trophy Winner in NHL History

The Hart Memorial Trophy is the NHL's regular-season MVP award, given since the 1923-24 season to the player "adjudged to be the most valuable to his team." It has been awarded 102 times to 63 different players. Wayne Gretzky won it nine times, eight of them in a row. The most recent winner is Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov, who took his second Hart in 2025-26.

Below is every winner, season by season, plus the part most casual fans get wrong: the Hart is not an award for the best player in the league, and the wording is deliberate.

The Hart at a Glance

What "Most Valuable to His Team" Really Means

The Hart's official wording has not changed in a century, and it is not the same as "best player in the NHL." A player is judged on what his own team would look like without him. That opens the door to seasons where the best player on the best roster loses to a player carrying a mediocre one.

The clearest example is Al Rollins, a goaltender who won the Hart in 1953-54 for a Chicago team that finished last in the six-team league. A more recent one is Taylor Hall in 2017-18, who scored 93 points for a New Jersey side that had missed the playoffs five years running and dragged it back in. Neither man was the league's outright best player that season. Both were, by the trophy's actual test, indispensable.

The award is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) — the reporters who cover the 32 teams — in a poll conducted at the end of the regular season. Voters rank five players, and the results are usually released with the other awards in June.

That "to his team" clause is why the Hart and the Ted Lindsay Award, described further down, sometimes split.

Every Hart Memorial Trophy Winner, 1923-24 to 2025-26

Two rows need a footnote. Joe Thornton's 2005-06 award is the odd one out: he was traded from Boston to San Jose 23 games into the season and still won. And Alexander Ovechkin appears as a left wing in 2007-08 and 2008-09 but a right wing in 2012-13, because Washington moved him across the ice in between.

Gretzky's Nine

Wayne Gretzky won the Hart nine times, more than twice as many as any player except Gordie Howe. Eight came consecutively, from 1979-80 through 1986-87 with the Edmonton Oilers — the longest run of MVP awards in the history of the four major North American leagues. The streak ended when Mario Lemieux won in 1987-88. Gretzky then took a ninth in 1988-89, his first season with the Los Angeles Kings.

He and Mark Messier are the only players to win the Hart with more than one franchise.

The Other Multiple Winners

Twenty players have won the Hart more than once. Kucherov became the twentieth in 2026.

Goaltenders and Defensemen Almost Never Win

The Hart has gone to a forward in the overwhelming majority of seasons. Skaters who put up points dominate the ballot, and the league has separate hardware for the other positions — the Vezina Trophy for goaltenders, the James Norris Memorial Trophy for defensemen — which gives voters an easy place to reward them instead.

Goaltenders: 9 wins by 8 different players. Roy Worters (1928-29), Chuck Rayner (1949-50), Al Rollins (1953-54), Jacques Plante (1961-62), Dominik Hasek (1996-97 and 1997-98), Jose Theodore (2001-02), Carey Price (2014-15) and Connor Hellebuyck (2024-25). Hasek is the only goalie to win it twice, and did it back to back. Hellebuyck's 2024-25 win ended a nine-year gap.

Defensemen: 13 wins by 8 different players. Herb Gardiner (1926-27), Eddie Shore (four times in the 1930s), Babe Siebert (1936-37), Ebbie Goodfellow (1939-40), Tommy Anderson (1941-42), Babe Pratt (1943-44), Bobby Orr (three straight, 1970-72) and Chris Pronger (1999-2000). Pronger's is the most recent — no defenseman has won the Hart in more than a quarter-century.

The Hart vs. the Ted Lindsay Award

The two look like the same award, and they are not.

The players' award began in 1971 as the Lester B. Pearson Award and was renamed for Ted Lindsay in 2010, honoring the Hall of Fame forward who helped found the original players' union. Because it asks a different question — outstanding, not most valuable to his own club — and is decided by a different electorate, the two trophies split fairly often. Across the seasons in which both have been handed out, they have gone to the same player roughly two-thirds of the time and to different players in about one year in three.

The 2025-26 season is a good illustration. Kucherov took the Hart with 1,436 voting points and 72 first-place votes to Connor McDavid's 1,426 and 68 — a margin of ten points — while the players gave McDavid the Ted Lindsay, his record fifth.

The Original Hart Trophy, Retired in 1960

The trophy was donated to the NHL in 1923 by Dr. David A. Hart, whose son Cecil Hart managed and coached the Montreal Canadiens to Stanley Cups in 1930 and 1931. Frank Nighbor of the Ottawa Senators was the first winner, for the 1923-24 season.

By 1960 the original was fragile enough that the NHL retired it to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, where it remains on display, and commissioned a replacement. That replacement is the trophy handed out today, and its full name — the Hart Memorial Trophy — dates from that 1960 changeover. Winners before 1960 are still Hart Trophy winners; only the physical object changed.

Kucherov's 2026 Win

Nikita Kucherov's second Hart came seven years after his first. He finished the 2025-26 season with 44 goals and 86 assists for 130 points in 76 games, led the NHL at 1.71 points per game, and recorded a point in 60 of his 76 appearances. He is the third player to go seven or more years between Hart wins, after Jean Beliveau (eight years) and Sidney Crosby (seven).

Kucherov's teammate Andrei Vasilevskiy won the Vezina the same year, and Jon Cooper won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year — a clean sweep of three major awards for one franchise. Kucherov has yet to win a Conn Smythe; for the playoff MVP history, see Every Conn Smythe Trophy Winner in NHL History.

How the Hart Compares to the NFL and NBA MVPs

All three are media-voted, and all three run into the same argument every year about whether "valuable" means "best." The NHL is unusual in spelling out "to his team" in the criteria, and unusual in having a parallel players'-vote award that lets fans see the split. The NFL's 2025-season MVP went to Matthew Stafford at the February 2026 NFL Honors, in the closest vote in 23 years; the NBA's 2025-26 MVP was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

For the postseason equivalents in the other leagues, see Every NBA Finals MVP Winner in History and List of Every Super Bowl Winner by Year.

Elsewhere on the site: List of Every Stanley Cup Winner by Year, How Many Players Are on an NHL Roster - Lines, Pairings and Scratches, and Every NHL Arena Ranked From Oldest to Newest.

This page is updated each June, when the NHL announces its regular-season awards.

FAQ

Who won the Hart Trophy in 2026? Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning, his second Hart after 2018-19. He beat Connor McDavid by ten voting points, 1,436 to 1,426, after a 130-point season in 76 games.

Who has won the most Hart Trophies? Wayne Gretzky, with nine. Eight came in a row from 1979-80 through 1986-87 with Edmonton; the ninth came in 1988-89 with Los Angeles. Gordie Howe is second with six.

What does the Hart Trophy criteria actually say? It goes to "the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team." That is a narrower test than "best player in the league," and it is why players on weak teams occasionally win.

When did a goalie last win the Hart Trophy? Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets in 2024-25. He was the eighth different goaltender to win it, and the first since Carey Price in 2014-15.

When did a defenseman last win the Hart Trophy? Chris Pronger of the St. Louis Blues in 1999-2000. Only eight defensemen have ever won it, with Eddie Shore (four) and Bobby Orr (three) accounting for most of the wins.

What is the difference between the Hart Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award? The Hart is voted by hockey writers and asks who was most valuable to his own team. The Ted Lindsay Award is voted by NHL players and asks who was the most outstanding player. They land on the same player about two-thirds of the time; in 2025-26 they split, with Nikita Kucherov taking the Hart and Connor McDavid the Lindsay.

Why is it called the Hart Memorial Trophy? The original Hart Trophy was donated in 1923 by Dr. David A. Hart. It was retired to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1960 and replaced by a new trophy, which the NHL named the Hart Memorial Trophy. The award and its history carried straight over.

Why was there no Hart Trophy in 2004-05? A lockout canceled the entire 2004-05 season. With no games played, the NHL handed out no regular-season awards that year.