Best Players in the Central Division: Who Are the Hart Candidates?

After a muted offseason in the NHL, the start of the 2025-26 season is now just six days away. 

Some of the league’s best players will be fighting for wins in the Central Division. And some of those same players will also be competing for the Hart Trophy. 

Connor Hellebuyck, who won the Hart Trophy last season, is the second-straight player from the Central to win the award. 

One of the following five players can make it three in a row. Here are the five players with the shortest odds to win the MVP trophy as of October 1. 

Best Players in the Central Division: Who Are the Hart Candidates?

Nathan MacKinnon, C, Avalanche (+475)

Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon will be vying for his second Hart Trophy this year after winning the award for the 2023-24 season. 

MacKinnon’s Hart-winning campaign in 2024 was fueled by a mind-boggling 140-point outing, 51 goals, and 89 assists. 

Last season, MacKinnon fell about 20 goals short of that mark from the year prior, finishing with 32 goals and a league-leading 84 assists in 79 games played. He ended up finishing fourth in the Hart voting for 2024-25, earning 27 first-place votes. 

MacKinnon feels like he’ll be solidly in the mix for the Hart Trophy as he has over the last few years. He just keeps chugging along each year, turning in top-five Hart finish seasons and keeping everyone happy. 

What could move him up into a higher stratosphere, from a strong contender to a favorite, is a change in the Avalanche’s status as a contender. 

Coloradans seemingly haven’t come down yet from their Rocky Mountain High from when they won the Stanley Cup in 2022 — please clap in front of your phone or laptop if you liked that joke. The team has somewhat underachieved in the years since that victory, but you haven’t heard much complaining from media or Avalanche fans. 

Even if you still view the Oilers as the favorite in the Western Conference — despite them feeling weaker this season after a second-straight Stanley Cup Finals loss — the spot of second-best in the West is wide open. 

MacKinnon leading his team to another Division title, over the also-contending Dallas, and a first overall seed could lead him to become a Hart Trophy favorite. 

There’s already a precedent with Hellebuyck last season, who was in the mix for the Hart Trophy all year but became the favorite once it was clear that Winnipeg would be the top-seed. 

Kirill Kaprizov, LW, Wild (+800)

The front office in Minnesota is sure hoping that Kirill Kaprizov has a Hart Trophy-worthy season after handing him the largest contract in league history this week. 

Kaprizov signed an eight-year $136 million extension with the Wild on September 30, ending a contract dispute that looked like it may become a holdout as the season neared. 

Now, Kaprizov doesn’t just have a contract, he has one richer than any player in NHL history. I don’t know if anyone could have predicted that Kaprizov, who was kind of an underrated guy during last season, would have been the player to surpass Leon Draisaitl’s record-setting extension that was inked just last year. 

This will be a major prove-it year for the 28-year-old who finished 18th in Hart voting last season after receiving just three votes for 5th place. He had 25 goals and 31 assists in 41 games played. 

His highest-ever Hart vote finish was in 2021-22, his second season, when he finished in seventh place.

Do these numbers scream highest-paid player to you?

Minnesota has given Kaprizov a lot of decimal places to live up to with that contract, and that will start this season. 

Outside of having a breakout year or a significant shakeup in the win column for the Wild, I don’t see him living up to the number or winning the Hart Trophy. 

Connor Hellebuyck, G, Jets (+3000)

I gave Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck a lot of grief before, during, and after his Hart Trophy win last season. 

I don’t know what it is, I just find it hard to buy into the idea of that guy being the most valuable player in the league. Maybe it’s my aversion to players who don’t show up in the playoffs at all, but the Hart Trophy is a regular-season award, so maybe it’s worth it to lay off of him. 

Along with winning the Hart Trophy last year, Hellebuyck became a three-time winner of the Vezina Trophy as well. 

Playing in a league-leading 63 games, he had a league and career best 2.00 GAA and a .925 save percentage.

Those kinds of numbers are definitely repeatable for Hellebuyck, headed into this 2025-26 season. The 2.00 GAA will be hard to repeat, but I expect him to remain consistently elite this season. 

Like I said previously, what really pushed Hellebuyck over the hump was the Presidents’ Trophy win for Winnipeg. He’s had elite numbers for years, but the Jets hadn’t reached those heights yet in his career. 

He faces a tough battle to become a repeat Hart Trophy winner. There isn’t much he can really improve on from last year, and outside of simply repeating what he already achieved in 2025, I don’t know if the PWHA voters would reward him. 

Cale Makar, D, Avalanche (+3500)

Another Colorado player who could make himself a Hart Trophy contender this season is defenseman Cale Makar. 

Makar has already won almost every other award a defenseman can win in his relatively short NHL career. He’s a two-time Norris Trophy winner, a Conn Smythe Trophy winner, a Calder Trophy winner, and a Stanley Cup winner. Additionally, he won college hockey’s MVP award, the Hobey Baker Award, in 2019. 

The only real mountain left to climb for Makar is the Hart Trophy. 

His highest ever finish for the award came just last season when he finished sixth. This past season Makar had 30 goals and 62 assists. He also had a +28 plus/minus. 

With the tools Makar has and his stature in the league, a Hart Trophy is bound to happen at some point for him. 

He may have to wait for MacKinnon to pass him the baton as far as number one scoring option. 

But with continued excellence at the offensive and defensive ends of the game, that contention for the Hart Trophy could start this season. 

Mikko Rantanen, RW, Stars (+6600)

After being traded twice in one season, Dallas’ Mikko Rantanen is probably looking forward to some more stability in the 2025-26 season. 

He started last season on the Avalanche but was dealt to Carolina 49 games into the season after contract extension talks stalled between him and the team. The sticking point for Colorado was reportedly Rantanen asking to be paid more than MacKinnon, something they just wouldn’t consider. 

Rantanen then played 13 games in Carolina but the team also had issues getting an extension done with the soon-to-be UFA. They decided on the day of the trade deadline to move him once again to the Stars.

Almost immediately, Rantanen signed an eight-year, $96 million contract extension.

Rantanen led the Stars in scoring through their playoff run, which ended in a five-game loss to Edmonton in the Conference Finals.

Through all that uncertainty, Rantanen still remained an elite player. He finished the year with 32 goals and 56 assists in 82 games played. The season didn’t earn Rantanen any consideration for the Hart Trophy, though.

The one thing that will work in Rantanen’s favor this season is the stability provided by not being a UFA and, almost certainly, not being on the trade block. 

If he maintains his production from recent seasons, he will be a contender for the Hart Trophy.