NHL Awards 2024: What Stood Out In the Voting for the Hart, Norris, Vezina and Calder
Nathan MacKinnon with the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
The 2024 NHL Awards have come and gone, which means it's time to examine the voting breakdown and see what stood out the most.
Not all awards have the same group of voters. For Thursday night's five awards handed out, the Hart, Calder and Norris Trophies were voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. The Vezina Trophy was voted on by the 32 NHL GMs, while the Ted Lindsay Award was voted on by members of the NHL Players' Association – a.k.a. the players.
For four of those awards, the voting breakdown was made public. Let's look at what stands out the most in each one, including some surprises.
Hart Trophy
10-7-5-3-1 points allocation (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th)
Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon received 137 first-place votes out of 194 ballots, while Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov received 50.
But MacKinnon received one fifth-place vote and was left off one ballot entirely, while Kucherov's voting breakdown was spread out (50-77-30-23-11) and was left off three ballots despite winning the Art Ross Trophy with 144 points.
Kucherov had 50 more points than Brayden Point, who was second on the Lightning in points. MacKinnon had 36 more points than Mikko Rantanen's 104.
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby had earned some Hart Trophy discussion when he helped lead his team to a late-season comeback, just missing out on the playoffs. He finished ninth in Hart Trophy voting with one second-place vote (0-1-3-1-13).
The three players with one fifth-place vote only are 89-point getter Sebastian Aho of the Carolina Hurricanes, 57-goal scorer Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers and Washington Capitals goaltender Charlie Lindgren, who posted a 25-16-7 record, a 2.67 goals-against average and .911 save percentage.
Vezina Trophy
5-3-1 points allocation (1st-2nd-3rd)
Speaking of Lindgren, he received one third-place vote by an NHL GM. But Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck was nearly a unanimous winner, receiving 31 of 32 first-place votes.
Florida Panthers goalie and Stanley Cup champion Sergei Bobrovsky received the other first-place vote, although he received eight second-place votes and 11 third-place tallies. Vancouver Canucks netminder Thatcher Demko got the bulk of the second-place votes, with 20, but he was left off two ballots.
The Boston Bruins saw both their goalies receive votes, with recently traded Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman finishing sixth and seventh in the voting, respectively.
Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders received one third-place vote after recording a 3.01 goals-against average and .909 save percentage, along with a 25-19-12 record.
Norris Trophy
10-7-5-3-1 points allocation (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th)
Much of the awards talk this season was about Quinn Hughes versus Cale Makar. Later in the season, it was Quinn Hughes versus Cale Makar versus Roman Josi.
But when it came time to vote, Vancouver Canucks captain Hughes received 172 first-place votes among the 194 ballots. He appeared on every ballot, with 17 second-place votes and five third-place votes as well.
Predators captain Josi did pass Avalanche D-man Makar, though, taking second place with 1,207 points to Makar's 893. That said, Josi did not appear on three ballots, while Makar was surprisingly left off 26.
At the bottom of the table, Sabres blueliner Rasmus Dahlin finished 15th with three fifth-place votes.
Calder Trophy
10-7-5-3-1 points allocation (1st-2nd-3rd-4th-5th)
Connor Bedard captured the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie, but another big discussion point during the season was about whether Minnesota Wild defenseman Brock Faber should win because of the significant role he played on the team's blueline.
Those two players were the only ones to receive first-place votes, with Chicago's Bedard getting 152 and Faber getting 42. What's possibly the most surprising is Bedard getting three third-place votes despite leading all NHL rookies and his Blackhawks teammates in scoring.
To qualify as a rookie, a player must not have played in more than 25 NHL games in a season nor in six or more games in two preceding seasons. That meant Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov, who's played in the NHL in each of the past three seasons, qualified and finished fourth in the voting. He played three games in 2021-22 and 24 in 2022-23.
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