Perhaps Nathan MacKinnon didn’t win the Hart Trophy because he was stuck in the middle, geographically speaking.
Among three finalists for the NHL’s top individual award, MacKinnon had Taylor Hall of the New Jersey Devils on the East Coast and Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings on the West Coast.
Hall went on to win the award with 72 first-place votes and 1,262 points. MacKinnon was second with 60 first-place votes and 1,194 points, and Kopitar was a distant third with 11 and 551. Most ballots had Hall and MacKinnon, or MacKinnon and Hall.
The Hart Trophy is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, which is made up of 31 chapters — one chapter for each of the NHL’s 31 teams.