If the Avs’ Coach Bednar had a vote, his top choice for the Hart Trophy would be MacKinnon.
Voting for the Hart Trophy, awarded to the NHL most valuable player, ends Wednesday before the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
If Avalanche coach Jared Bednar had a vote, his top two choices would be the guys who led their teams to the postseason after finishing last in their respective conferences a year ago.
Avs center Nathan MacKinnon led his team to a 47point improvement after finishing last in the Western Conference with 48 points in 201617. And left wing Taylor Hall led the New Jersey Devils from 70 points to 97.
Colorado and New Jersey finished with the second wildcard playoff berth in their respective conferences and a No. 8 seed.
“Nathan MacKinnon, No. 1, because I know what he’s done for us and that’s hard to do,” Bednar said Monday of his leading scorer, who is second in NHL points per game (averaging 1.31), behind only Edmonton’s Connor McDavid (1.32). “I think you have to look at Taylor Hall (at No. 2) because he’s similar in his situation with Jersey.”
Bednar’s third choice would be Tampa Bay right wing Nikita Kucherov, among a mix that includes Los Angeles center Anze Kopitar, Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux, Blake Wheeler of Winnipeg, Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malken and Sidney Crosby and Washington’s Alex Ovechkin. McDavid is the league’s scoring leader for the second consecutive year, but the Oilers didn’t make it to the playoffs.
“I don’t think you can discount what a guy like Kucherov has done there, because it was consistent, from start to finish,” Bednar said. “There’s a lot of close guys, in my opinion, probably for the third spot.”
The Hart Trophy winner is selected by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, which also chooses the winners of the Norris Trophy (top defenseman), Calder Trophy (rookie of the year), Lady Byng Trophy (sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability) and Selke Trophy (best defensive forward). The PHWA also votes on the NHL all-star team.
Scouting report.
Bednar said his staff has conferred with former Predators Colin Wilson, Gabriel Bourque and Sam Girard about Nashville, which hosts the Avs on Thursday and Saturday in Games 1 and 2 of their first-round playoff series.
“Going through their personnel today — Wils, Girard, Bourque — they all had some good things to say about their personnel and their strengths and weaknesses and some of the things that they do habitually,” Bednar said. “Also on their systematic stuff — some things that we may not know that they talk about as a group. So we’ve already got a lot of input from those guys and we’ll continue to throughout the course of the season.”
Footnotes.
MacKinnon didn’t practice Monday, along with forwards J.T. Compher and Blake Comeau. All three are expected to practice Tuesday. … The Avs will fly to Nashville on Wednesday morning and practice at Bridgestone Arena in the afternoon. … Bednar confirmed that defenseman Erik Johnson (knee) and goalie Semyon Varlamov (knee, groin) will not play in this series because of injuries.