Morning Coffee: Hart, Norris Trophy among NHL Award races set to go down to the wire

The NHL’s sprint to the finish begins tonight with 16 teams hitting the ice.

Artemi Panarin is expected to make his Los Angeles Kings debut against the visiting Vegas Golden Knights.

Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Devon Toews will be joined by gold medal winner Brock Nelson with the Colorado Avalanche set to visit the Utah Mammoth.

Fellow gold medalist Connor Hellebucyk and the Winnipeg Jets travel to face the Vancouver Canucks, Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers clash with the Anaheim Ducks in California, while Brayden Point and Victor Hedman return for the Tampa Bay Lightning as they host the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Toronto captain Auston Matthews is expected to play.

What should we expect from a betting perspective?

Last year, on the first day of NHL action after the 4 Nation’s Face-Off, underdogs went 9-5 straight up and 10-4 on the puck line.

The first four games averaged 9.3 goals and went 4-0 to the over.

However, anybody who decided to ride the over train was disappointed when six of the next 10 games featured six goals or fewer and the over finished 8-6.

The home/road splits were even (7-7).

The Nashville Predators upset the visiting Avalanche 2-1.

In case you missed it, I broke down why Colorado can’t afford a letdown over the final few weeks of the season.

Speaking of teams with little margin for error, you can pencil in the Maple Leafs, Capitals, Flyers, Kings, Ducks, Mammoth, and Jets as they fight for playoff spots.

On Tuesday, Josh Inglis from Covers.com took the time to contrast NHL team probabilities to make the playoffs with implied probabilities based on the odds from FanDuel.

No injury looms larger than Sidney Crosby’s status for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they get set to host the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, as I adjusted my rest of season rankings for all 32 NHL teams over the past couple of days, I couldn’t help but notice how close FanDuel has priced the races for a handful of notable NHL awards.

Let’s dive into those numbers in this Morning Coffee column for Wednesday February 26^th, 2026.

Hart, Norris Trophy Among NHL Award Races Set To Go Down To The Wire

In 2021-22, Auston Matthews delivered one of the best statistical seasons of his NHL career with 60 goals and 106 points to win the Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP.

Two years later in 2023-24, Matthews scored a career-high 69 goals and registered a career-high 107 points.

However, it was MacKinnon who won the Hart after producing a career-best 51 goals, 140 points, and leading the Avalanche to a 107-point season.

Interestingly, Nikita Kucherov led the NHL with 144 points that season, leading Tampa Bay to a 98-point season.

MacKinnon received 137 out of 194 first-place votes and 1740 voting points, compared to Kucherov getting only 50 first-place votes and 1269 voting points as runner-up.

Connor McDavid finished third with one first-place vote and 845 voting points overall.

Two years later, the trio of MacKinnon, Kucherov, and McDavid are among the top choices to win the Hart Trophy again at FanDuel, with a new name in the mix.

San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini is the second choice to win the Hart Trophy at FanDuel.

MacKinnon is a -250 favourite, followed by Celebrini at +450, Kucherov at +650, then McDavid at +850.

FanDuel also has a MacKinnon versus the field market with MacKinnon at -240 to win the Hart versus the rest of the NHL at +178.

Could one of Celebrini, Kucherov, or McDavid ultimately beat out MacKinnon for the Hart?

Based on the odds for the MacKinnon versus the field market, FanDuel is giving the rest of the NHL just a 36 per cent implied chance to win the Hart.

McDavid leads the NHL with 98 points – three points clear of MacKinnon with three more games played.

Kucherov was the NHL’s hottest player going into the Olympic break with 17 points in his final six games to close the gap on McDavid and MacKinnon in the race.

Kucherov leads the NHL with 1.78 points per game this season but has played seven fewer games than McDavid and four fewer games than MacKinnon.

As impressive as Celebrini’s performance has been, he’s still a full 10 points back of Kucherov for third in the NHL scoring race with four more games played.

Meanwhile, the Sharks are currently two points back of the Ducks for the Western Conference’s final Wild Card.

Celebrini has exceeded all expectations as the best of a handful of impressive under-21 Canadians in the NHL, but he might not be ready to win the Hart this season.

Once again, this could be a situation in which a legitimate case could be made for all three of MacKinnon, McDavid, and Kucherov to win the Hart depending on how they finish the season.

Kucherov would makes sense as a speculative value play at +650 odds, but it’s important to keep in mind the way he lost out to MacKinnon in the Hart Trophy voting despite finishing with more points a couple of years ago.

Kucherov is the Art Ross Trophy favourite at +145.

MacKinnon is the third choice to win the Art Ross at +190 behind Kucherov and McDavid at +150.

However, the Avalanche remain on pace to win the Presidents’ Trophy with the NHL’s best record.

Colorado regressed a bit in the weeks before the break but still has the fourth-easiest remaining strength of schedule based on opponent.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay will face the fourth-toughest remaining strength of schedule.

The Oilers are in the middle of the pack with the 15^th-most difficult remaining strength of schedule.

Meanwhile, the Hart Trophy isn’t the only major award that will be determined over the final few weeks of the NHL regular season.

Zach Werenski and Makar are -120 and +100 to win the Norris Trophy, respectively.

On Tuesday, I made the case to bet Hughes at +2000.

Hughes is +1800 as the third choice this morning.

In case you missed it, Hughes and the Wild are set to visit Makar and the Avalanche on Thursday night.

Then there’s the Vezina Trophy, which appears to be a two-horse race right now with Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders a -120 favourite and Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy a close second choice at +110 at FanDuel.

Washington Capitals netminder Logan Thompson is +1200 as the third choice.

Unlike last year when Hellebucyk was a lock to win that award at this point in the season, this year’s race should go down to the wire.

Who do you think is the best bet to win the Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Norris Trophy, and the Vezina Trophy?

Hit me up @Domenic_Padula on X and let me know.

With the final stretch set to begin tonight, there’s still a lot left to look forward to over the final few weeks of the NHL regular season, including a handful of individual awards.

Have a great day, everyone.