Connor McDavid Now Has Twice As Many Hart Trophies As Playoff Series Wins In His Career. Edmonton Should Feel Shame
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.Connor McDavid became just the 2nd unanimous Hart Trophy winner since Wayne Gretzky yesterday. He received 100 out of 100 1st place votes, making him just the 19th player in league history to win the award multiple times.
So through 6 seasons in the National Hockey League, Connor McDavid now has 3 Art Ross Trophies as the league's leading point scorer, 3 Ted Lindsay Awards as the league's most valuable player as voted on by the players association, 2 Hart Trophies as the league's most valuable player as voted on by the hockey writers association, and 1 playoff series win as completely botched by the Edmonton Oilers organization.
Now I've done a bit of research since I'm an investigative journalist at heart. And by research, I just mean looking up the list of multi-Hart Trophy winners and trying my best to remember how many of these guys were stuck playing for dog shit teams. And I don't believe that McDavid is the first player to win multiple Hart Trophies before winning multiple playoff series. Ovechkin won the Hart in 2007-08 and then won it again the following season in 08-09. In those seasons, the Caps lost in the first round against the Flyers and then lost in the 2nd round to the Penguins. So that's 2 trophies and only 1 playoff series win. But that was in back-to-back seasons so it's same same, but different, but still same.
But honestly, that would be my only glimmer of hope as an Edmonton Oilers fan right now. It took Ovi, what, like 12 or 13 years to get it done? So at least the Oilers are halfway there if they're following that plan. Could be worse, I suppose.
Either way…congrats to McJesus. The man is an absolute force, is on the trajectory to be one of the greatest to ever play the game, and it's only a matter of time before he moves on to a team that can actually take advantage of having the best hockey player in the world currently on their roster.
P.S. - Speaking about disappointing hockey teams in the province of Alberta, how do you think the Calgary Flames are feeling this morning? You trade Dougie Hamilton and Adam Fox for Noah Hanifin a couple of summers ago. Dougie has been one of the better defensemen in the league over the past few years, and now Adam Fox wins his first Norris Trophy. Yikes. Tough trade to look back on.