Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov tops Penguins' Sidney Crosby in NHL MVP voting
Coming into the NHL’s annual postseason awards ceremony Wednesday night, Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby didn’t think he had a great shot at winning his third Hart Trophy as league MVP.
His assessment was right on the money.
Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov, who won the scoring title by 12 points after recording 41 goals and 87 assists, claimed the Hart Trophy for the first time. He received 164 of 171 first-place votes.
Crosby finished second in the voting, receiving three first-place votes. Edmonton’s Connor McDavid was third.
Crosby recorded the sixth 100-point season of his career and his first since 2013-14. In addition, his two-way play earned him consideration for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward. He finished fourth in the balloting. St. Louis’ Ryan O’Reilly was the winner.
In other voting, Kris Letang finished in the top 10 in the running for the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman for the sixth time in his career. He was sixth behind winner Mark Giordano of Calgary.
Crosby, Phil Kessel and Matt Cullen received votes for the Lady Byng Trophy, awarded for gentlemanly play, which went to Florida’s Aleksander Barkov.
Defenseman Marcus Pettersson and newly acquired forward Dominik Kahun received votes in the balloting for the Calder Trophy, which is given to the rookie of the year. Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson was the winner.
Jonathan Bombulie is the TribLive assistant sports editor. A Greensburg native, he was a hockey reporter for two decades, covering the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for 17 seasons before joining the Trib in 2015 and covering the Penguins for four seasons, including Stanley Cup championships in 2016-17. He can be reached at jbombulie@triblive.com.
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