2025-26 NHL Awards Watch at the Three-Quarters Mark

We highlight which players could be up for the Hart, Norris, Calder and Selke Trophies now that we're over 75% through the season.

Welcome to our third NHL Awards Watch of the 2025-26 season. Every quarter, we will release an updated version of this to highlight which players are potentially in the running for key awards. In case you missed our half-season watch, you can get caught up here.

With most teams having just 15-18 games left to play as of this writing, we have a good idea who the contenders are. It will now be a matter of jockeying for position down the stretch.

Before we jump into the list, I want to rehash the process I have when it comes to determining not only who makes this list, but who I may eventually vote for when the time comes to cast our ballots.

My Process

The obvious thing we have to do as writers is watch as many games as possible. This is accomplished in a couple of ways.

First, we go to the games. In my case, I am at every Blue Jackets’ home game plus a select number of road games. I’ll be travelling to Detroit and Buffalo in April.

Then if I’m not at the games, I am watching games. A lot of them. Certain Saturdays allow me the chance to watch 3-4 games that day.

Then if there’s a player of interest in a game I didn’t watch, I will pull the game from ESPN+ the day after and watch the film. I will do this specifically to monitor growth and development especially in the Calder race. I want to see how they were in November and then how they are now.

Are they still making the same kind of impact? Or is the long season catching up to them?

For the Norris and Hart, it’s more check ins on the contenders. Several factors ultimately go into each award and the criteria I’m looking for.

Now that you have an idea of the process I follow, let’s dive into the NHL Awards Watch for the third quarter of the 2025-26 season.

Like before, we will evaluate the Hart, Norris and Calder Trophies as those are the three major awards members of the Professional Hockey Writer’s Association vote on. We also vote on the Selke and Lady Byng Trophies. We’ll have those for our final NHL Awards Watch.

I will share three players for each trophy with a quick snippet as to why they are in the conversation. Then I’ll share some other names to watch.

Hart Trophy

Nathan MacKinnon

The winner of the 2024 Hart Memorial Trophy continues his absolute dominance. He continues to be the best player on the best team in the standings. This has become a dog fight though.

While the Avalanche continue to lead the league standings, they have come back to earth a little. It’s not that MacKinnon has slowed down. It’s that other players have risen up to make this an intense competition.

What will continue to set MacKinnon apart in the eyes of many voters is just how dominant the Avalanche are when he is on the ice. As of this writing, the Avalanche outscore their opponents 84-27 at 5-on-5 with MacKinnon on the ice. Connor McDavid is 61-58. Nikita Kucherov is 68-38. Macklin Celebrini is 58-45.

While MacKinnon continues to be the front runner, this by no means is a closed case. The way the season finishes could determine who wins the Hart.

Nikita Kucherov

There’s that man again. All Kucherov does is perform at an elite level year after year. Yet, he seems to finish in the running without winning the prize. As of this writing, he leads the NHL in points per game at 1.77 per game.