The trophy belongs to Connor Hellebuyck
He’ll be a lovely third place finish.
As brilliant of a season he has had, he’s not winning in a year where one forward has a chasm lead in goals and could pot 60 and win the Art Ross (Draisaitl), another forward who is our most recent winner could hand out 90 assists and win the scoring race he didn’t last season (MacKinnon), and both players will finish with 120-125 points.
Since Orr completed his third consecutive Hart win in 1971-1972, we have seen a non-forward win the Hart just five times over the past 53 years, and only under very specific scenarios.
1. Four of the five instances occurred in a six year span. Hasek owns two of the five and is possibly the greatest goalie ever. That leaves Pronger (1999-2000), Theodore (2001-2002), and Price (2014-2015).
2. No standout forward season is needed, particularly compared to what occurred in the season before.
3. The Art Ross winner fails to hit 100 points.
Pronger won by one vote during a year where the Art Ross winner had 96 points. Jagr missed 19 games, which dinged him in two different ways, i.e. missed 100 points and didn’t suit up for a quarter of his team’s games, automatically lowering his value to the team.
Theodore won during a year where no one hit 100 points and only four players even hit 80. He also tied for the most Hart votes and won with the first place tie breaker.
Price won during a year where no one even hit 90 points. He won convincingly because there were zero interesting stories that season.
Hellebuyck has been incredible from beginning to end, but we still have interesting storylines among the forward crop and the necessary numbers that most voters won’t overlook.
It would take a complete simultaneous collapse by both Draisaitl and MacKinnon at this point and Hellebuyck to win a handful of 1-0 games down the final stretch to turn the tide in terms of collecting enough first place votes to pull off higher than a third place finish.
TLDR: Hellebuyck will not win the Hart.