McDavid Chases Hart Trophy No. 4 While Oilers' Stanley Cup Window Creaks Shut

As The Hockey Writers reported, Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, and Nathan MacKinnon were named Hart Trophy finalists on May 8, setting up a vote that could place McDavid third on the all-time Hart winners list with four — behind only Gordie Howe (six) and Wayne Gretzky (nine). McDavid finished the 2025-26 regular season with 138 points in 82 games, leading the NHL in scoring for the sixth time in his career and outpacing Kucherov by eight points and MacKinnon by 11. The case for McDavid is straightforward: no other player in the league operates at his sustained level of production, and a sixth scoring title makes the Hart almost redundant as a debate.

The complication is context. Edmonton was bounced in six games in the first round by the Anaheim Ducks, and McDavid was visibly diminished after picking up an ankle injury early in the series. The postseason collapse follows two consecutive seasons of deep playoff runs — including a Conn Smythe-winning performance in the 2024 Cup Finals — and the cumulative mileage on McDavid's body is a legitimate concern heading into next year. He also added Olympic gold and tournament MVP honors at the 2026 Winter Games, setting a new NHL-player scoring record for a single Olympic tournament with 13 points. The workload over a 36-month stretch is historically unprecedented.

The organizational alarm bells are louder than any individual trophy noise. McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were direct at their end-of-season press conference: the Oilers took a step backward. The core is aging — Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are all in their 30s — and the supporting infrastructure in net and on the back end hasn't kept pace with the offensive firepower up front. McDavid signed a two-year extension last October that functions as an implicit deadline: fix this now, or face an existential reckoning. Edmonton's front office enters this offseason under genuine pressure, not manufactured pressure.

For bettors, McDavid's individual prop market is where the real signal lives. His 138-point regular season makes any points-per-game or season-total line set below 1.6 points per game look like a gift — assuming health. The ankle injury is the operative variable. If he enters 2026-27 at full strength and the Oilers shed some of the condensed-schedule burden (the NHL is expected to return to a more standard game-per-week pace), his shots-on-goal rate and points production should normalize upward from what was a slightly suppressed playoff stretch. His regular-season shots-on-goal average has consistently ranked among the top five forwards in the league, and a healthy McDavid on a motivated Oilers team early in the season is a volume machine.

The smart positioning heading into next season is to monitor McDavid's training camp status aggressively. If he's healthy and Edmonton has addressed goaltending, lean heavily into his points props and anytime goal markets at any number the books set conservatively — oddsmakers tend to anchor on his age (he turns 30 in January 2027) and the playoff disappointment rather than the 138-point body of work. Fade the cautious lines early. If the ankle resurfaces as an issue, the calculus flips entirely: even McDavid's floor drops when he's protecting a leg.