Three NHL Dark Horse Candidates For The 2026-27 Hart Trophy

The Hockey News is putting together a short series breaking down some of the top candidates for the NHL's major awards for the 2026-27 season. Today's focus is on the Hart Trophy.

Since the 2020-21 NHL season, just nine different players have finished as the top three finalists for the Hart, given annually to the NHL's most valuable player.

That's a pretty exclusive club, and unless you're Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov, or Connor McDavid, your chance for entry into it will be pretty limited.

But that obviously doesn't mean it's impossible. Almost every year, there's at least one interloper while the perennial top guys duke it out.

Here are a few of the best options to be the next guy up:

The Panthers were so bad last year in Barkov's full-season absence due to injury that it's a bit surprising he didn't get Hart consideration with zero games played.

He's back now, the Panthers are reloaded, and he seems to be back at 100 percent. It's easy to see how a full year off might have done his body some good after three straight runs to the Stanley Cup Final, plus the international hockey he played.

Given the quality of defense he provides — he's basically a shoo-in for the Selke — if he can get his production up to a point per game or better, and the Panthers are one of the best regular-season teams in the league, as many expect? It's really easy to see a world where he gets a lot of Hart votes.

This comes with the obvious caveat that the Devils have to be both good and healthy all season, which is certainly a rare occurrence, but Jack Hughes has all the makings of an MVP candidate when he's locked in.

While he missed at least 20 games each of the last three years, he was still able to put up 81 goals and 221 points in 185 games over that period. That's right around what highly-touted guys like Cole Caufield, Alex DeBrincat, and Matt Boldy have produced in 60 or so fewer games.

By points per game over the last three seasons, only seven players finished ahead of Hughes.

Again, this is a guy who has struggled to stay in the lineup, but if he defies the odds and plays something like 75-plus the Devils should be really good. If he can fully realize the 100-point potential he has displayed, it gets really easy to connect the dots.

Bedard is slated to miss the first few months of the season, which doesn't bode well for his chance at being considered for awards.

But there's a realistic world where Chicago does somewhat well without him, and then explodes when he comes back into the lineup. If he's able to steer this team to, say, 95 points and a playoff spot for the first time in a decade and give the franchise some hope, voters are going to eat that up.

That idea isn't as crazy as it sounds. It's easy to forget now, but Bedard was electrifying early last season, then missed almost a month due to injury, and was never quite the same after his return.

In his first 31 games, he posted 19 goals and 44 points. Those are borderline-MVP numbers if stretched over the full season (a 49-goal, 115-point pace across 82 games).

Plus, he plays for a team about which people say things like, "The NHL is just better when Chicago is good." If they make the playoffs and he comes back into the season on or around Dec. 1, and puts up a pace for another 50ish goals and 120ish points, it'll be hard for voters to not throw him some MVP consideration.

With his big, new contract, it's officially time for Bedard to put up or shut up, so this is his opportunity.

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