I hope you are coming from part one of this article of breaking down the super close race for the NHL’s hart trophy. If you haven’t read it click HERE Without further ado let’s look at the next four players MVP cases. 

Quinn Hughes: If you’re a Canucks fan you know what Quinn Hughes means to this franchise. It’s hard to imagine where the Canucks would be without him. They’ve been plagued with injuries to key players and Elias Pettersson has not played his best by any means. Hughes has single handedly kept his team in the playoff race. He’s also done it by logging big minutes playing without his defence partner Filip Hronek who missed 21 games and leading all defencemen in scoring. The 2024 norris trophy winner is looking to become the first defenceman since 2000 to win MVP.

Tertiary assist leaders this season via @ShutdownLine:

23 — Quinn Hughes
15 — Nikita Kucherov
13 — Victor Hedman
12 — Filip Hronek

He's really the whole offense on this team. pic.twitter.com/qa3k5oUBr1

— Big Head Hockey (@BigHeadHcky) January 8, 2025

Connor Hellebuyck: Last year Connor Hellebuyck had a record of 37-19-4 along with five shutouts good for his second vezina trophy. You would think that’s hard to top right? So far this season Hellebuyck’s record is 27-6-2 and six shutouts. That’s right he has the same amount of shutouts as regulation losses. The Jets starting off the season winning 15 of their 16 games and Hellebuyck hasn’t looked back. He leads all goalies in save percentage goals against average as well as shutouts. He’s looking to become the first goalie since 2015 to win the hart and I think he has a great shot.

Nikita Kucherov: When the Lightning let captain Steven Stamkos walk in free agency a ton of people had questions about the team. Some even questioned if Kucherovs’ production would fall off. He shut the nay-sayers up really quick this year. He had a career high 144 points last year and this year is proving he still is an offensive power house. He is currently second in scoring and is looking to add to an already impressive resume. The lightning may not be the elite team they once were but Kucherov can still put up points at an elite level.

Kirill Kaprisov: Kaprisov has always been one of the most underrated players in the league in my opinion. Which is wild, because he’s done nothing but put the puck in the back of the net since he entered the NHL. He started this year on fire and was first in scoring at one point which propelled Minnesota to the top of the Western Conference. The Wild had never had too much offensive firepower and when Kaprisov missed time they struggled. If Minnesota finishes as a top team and “Kirill the thrill” keeps putting up points, he will have a great case of becoming the player in Wild history to win MVP.