The National Hockey League's Hart Memorial Trophy is awarded each season to the player deemed most valuable to his team in the NHL. This season, teenage phenom Maclin Celebrini of the San Jose Sharks should be the pick.
As we near the end of the 2025-26 NHL regular season, Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov are the favorites for the Hart Trophy. While they both certainly deserve it this year, their team's Most Valuable Player in hockey played in San Jose in 2026.
Let's look at our case for why Celebrini should win the Hart Trophy.
Macklin Celebrini's historic season deserves a historic trophy
In professional sports, narrative and history shape MVP voting. We've seen it in the NBA, when Russell Westbrook won MVP after averaging a triple-double on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that finished sixth in their conference. Miguel Cabrera won the AL MVP while hitting for the Triple Crown in 2012, and the NFL MVP has been awarded based on storylines in the past.
Narrative and NHL history should also influence Hart Trophy voting. This season, Celebrini became the sixth teenager in history to record over 100 points in a season, joining such all-time greats as Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux, Dale Hawerchuk, and Jimmy Carson. Earlier this season, he joined Lemieux, Gretzky and Crosby as the fourth teenager in NHL history with more than 40 points in 27 or fewer games.
The 19-year-old is also set to break Gretzky's NHL record for highest points percentage on his team's goals as a teenager. Celebrini is on pace for the third-most points total by a teenager in NHL history, behind only Crosby and Gretzky. Additionally, he is set to break San Jose's single-season points record (Joe Thornton, 114).
From a narrative standpoint, it seems appropriate to end a historic season with Celebrini, joining Gretzky and Crosby as the only teenagers to win the Hart Trophy in NHL history.
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The Celebrini Effect: Most Valuable Player in Hockey
The Hart Trophy is what defines what Celebrini is doing in San Jose this season. Through 76 games, the Sharks have scored 234 goals, with Celebrini scoring one point on 45.7 percent. For comparison, Kucherov has recorded a point on 45.2 percent of 279 goals for the Tampa Bay Lightning, and MacKinnon has recorded a point on 42.5 percent of 287 goals for the Colorado Avalanche.
Taking things a step further, let's compare how each Hart Trophy candidate scores against their peers. Kucherov has a 40-point advantage over Tampa Bay's second-highest scorer (Jake Guentzel, 86) and the Lightning have four players with more than 60 points this season. At Colorado, MacKinnon has 28 more points than teammate Martin Necas and the Avalanche have four skaters with more than 60 points. Meanwhile, Celebrini has a 52-point advantage over his next closest teammate (Will Smith, 55) and is the only player on the Sharks roster to score more than 60 points this season.
Another statistic to capture Celebrini's value: The Sharks have a 2-15-3 record in games where Celebrini doesn't record a point, and they are 35-17-4 when he does record a point. In games where Celebrini scored multiple points, San Jose is 24–3–1. This team is at the bottom of the NHL standings without him.
San Jose Sharks year-to-date improvement
Heading into the 2025–26 NHL season, the Sharks were projected to have an overall over/under of 70.5, with ESPN projecting them to finish last in the Pacific Division. The team was also in the bottom five of the consensus NHL power rankings. Entering the game on April 7, San Jose is 2 points out of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, having scored 29 more points than last season thanks to 17 more wins. This was unimaginable in October, especially after the team started the season 0-4-2. It is still one of the youngest teams in hockey and is being run by a teenager. All this is another reason why Celebrini deserves to win the Hart Memorial Trophy.
A season for the ages: Celebrini deserves the Hart Memorial Trophy
The Hart Trophy is a regular season award; It's a way to look back years from now to remember a defining moment of that year. Both MacKinnon and Kucherov have had excellent seasons, but what the hockey world will remember even more is that 19-year-old Celebrini put himself in the same company with the all-time greats with a historic season that turned the rebuilding Sharks into playoff contenders. Narrative matters here, and it's impossible to ignore how valuable Celebrini has been to San Jose this season. If the Hart Memorial Trophy is truly meant to be awarded "to the player declared most valuable to his team", it is Celebrini.
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