Hart Trophy Winners (NHL MVP by Year)

Wayne Gretzky has won the Hart Memorial Trophy as NHL MVP nine times, more than any player in the award’s century-long history. The most recent winner is Nathan MacKinnon, who took the 2024 trophy for the Colorado Avalanche.

The Hart, first awarded in 1924, goes to the player voted most valuable to his team each regular season. Gretzky’s grip on it in the 1980s was total, and no one since has come close to his total. Below are the recent winners and every multiple winner in the trophy’s history. Figures are as of the 2025 season.

Recent Hart Trophy winners

Here are the Hart Memorial Trophy winners from 2015 through 2024, with their team.

Year	Winner	Team
2024	Nathan MacKinnon	Colorado Avalanche
2023	Connor McDavid	Edmonton Oilers
2022	Auston Matthews	Toronto Maple Leafs
2021	Connor McDavid	Edmonton Oilers
2020	Leon Draisaitl	Edmonton Oilers
2019	Nikita Kucherov	Tampa Bay Lightning
2018	Taylor Hall	New Jersey Devils
2017	Connor McDavid	Edmonton Oilers
2016	Patrick Kane	Chicago Blackhawks
2015	Carey Price	Montreal Canadiens

Edmonton dominates the recent list, with McDavid winning three times and Draisaitl once inside a five-year span. Carey Price in 2015 is the last goaltender to take the award.

Every multiple Hart Trophy winner

Here are the players who have won the Hart more than twice.

Wins	Player	Years
9	Wayne Gretzky	1980-1987, 1989
6	Gordie Howe	1952, 1953, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1963
4	Eddie Shore	1933, 1935, 1936, 1938
3	Howie Morenz	1928, 1931, 1932
3	Bobby Orr	1970, 1971, 1972
3	Mario Lemieux	1988, 1993, 1996
3	Alex Ovechkin	2008, 2009, 2013
3	Connor McDavid	2017, 2021, 2023

Gretzky and Howe are in a tier of their own. Below them, a cluster of five players share three wins each, and McDavid is the only active name among them.

Gretzky’s run at the trophy

Gretzky’s nine Harts are hard to overstate. He won the award in each of his first eight full NHL seasons, from 1980 through 1987, a streak no player in any major North American sport has matched for an MVP award. He added a ninth in 1989 after his move to Los Angeles.

The record reflects a stretch when he was rewriting the scoring charts almost every year. For where his numbers sit in the all-time context, see our lists of the most points in NHL history and the most goals in NHL history, both of which he tops by wide margins.

How the award works, and who rarely wins it

The Hart is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association, with each voter naming a top-five ballot. The wording matters: it honors the player “most valuable to his team,” not simply the best statistical performer, which is why it occasionally goes to a player carrying a weaker roster rather than the league’s top scorer.

Goaltenders are the clearest example of who the award tends to overlook. Only a handful have won it, and Carey Price in 2015 is the most recent. Dominik Hasek is the sole goalie to win it twice, in 1997 and 1998, when Buffalo’s success ran almost entirely through his net. Defensemen are rare winners too — Bobby Orr and Chris Pronger are among the few. The trophy has mostly belonged to forwards, and above all to the two men, Gretzky and Howe, who defined their eras.

For the playoff equivalent, see our list of Conn Smythe Trophy winners, and read up on the greatest NHL players of all time to see how the Hart winners rank across history. Nine trophies is the mark, and no active player is even halfway there.