NHL Awards Watch: Races heating up as we enter stretch run
The 2025-26 NHL season is entering its stretch run, so let's take a look at frontrunners to take home some year-end awards. theScore's Michael Bradburn, Kyle Cushman, John Matisz, Sean O'Leary, Levi Smith, and Josh Wegman weigh in on who they think will win the Hart, Vezina, Norris, and Calder based on how the campaign has gone so far.
Hart Memorial Trophy
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MacKinnon remains in the driver's seat after earning top spot in our first edition two months ago, but the gap has closed. The Avalanche star is tied for second in league scoring, leads in shots, and is dominating his five-on-five minutes for the Western Conference's best team.
McDavid earned second-place votes on five of six ballots. He became the first player this season to reach 100 points, making him only the third player in league history, along with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, to hit the century mark in nine campaigns.
Our team was most divided over third place. Celebrini edged Kucherov by two voting points, setting up a compelling race as the regular season heads into the final stretch. Kucherov and the Lightning are scorching hot, while Celebrini, fresh off an international coming-out party at the Olympics, is trying to lead the young Sharks into the playoffs.
Zach Werenski, Kirill Kaprizov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Ilya Sorokin also earned downballot Hart consideration among our voters.
Vezina Trophy
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This is a two-horse race, with Vasilevskiy topping Sorokin by a hair. Vasilevskiy has won 17 of his past 18 starts, owning a .925 save percentage in that span. He's on track to be a Vezina finalist for the sixth time in his career and could win the award for a second time.
Sorokin leads all goaltenders with 45.81 goals saved above expected this season and has registered a .915 save percentage. He leads the NHL with six shutouts and will get serious Vezina consideration if the Islanders qualify for the playoffs.
Thompson was our consensus third-place pick, but there's a significant drop-off after Vasilevskiy and Sorokin. Bussi, Jeremy Swayman, Jet Greaves, and Karl Vejmelka earned multiple fourth- and fifth-place votes.
Norris Trophy
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The race for the Norris has also tightened. Makar looked like a runaway pick midway through the campaign, but Werenski earned the same amount of first-place votes this time around. However, Makar won the tiebreaker in our voting process, and he's still certainly a favorite. Last year's Norris winner has 58 points in 57 games while averaging over 25 minutes per night.
Werenski is tied for second among defensemen with 20 goals and has added 43 assists for a Blue Jackets squad that has reentered the playoff race. Columbus' top rearguard also ranks second among all blue-liners in average ice time (26:24) and owns an 18.3-10.7 advantage over Makar in Evolving-Hockey's goals above replacement metric.
While Hughes and Seider are both producing terrific seasons, they're in tough to usurp Makar and Werenski as the schedule winds down.
Calder Memorial Trophy
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The race for Rookie of the Year might as well be over. Schaefer recently set a new NHL record for goals by an 18-year-old defenseman (18) and is on pace to break the rookie blue-liner mark of 23. Additionally, he leads all Islanders skaters in average ice time (24:07) and could be a unanimous winner if New York makes the playoffs.
Although Demidov and Sennecke are first and second in the rookie scoring race this season, they aren't having the same impact on their respective teams as Schaefer.