4 Reasons Why SJ Sharks Star Macklin Celebrini Should Win the Hart Trophy

The National Hockey League’s Hart Memorial Trophy is awarded each season to the player deemed to be the most valuable to his team in the NHL. This season, the pick should be San Jose Sharks ‘ teenage phenom Macklin Celebrini. As we near the end of the 2025-26 NHL regular season, Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov are the Hart Trophy favorites.

While they are both certainly deserving this year, the most valuable player to his team in hockey in 2026 played in San Jose. Let’s dive into our case for why Celebrini should win the Hart Trophy. Macklin Celebrini’s Historic Season Merits a Historic Trophy Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images In professional sports, narrative and history shape MVP voting.

We’ve seen it in the NBA, when Russell Westbrook won MVP after averaging a triple-double on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that finished sixth in its conference. Miguel Cabrera won AL MVP in 2012 when he hit for the Triple Crown, and NFL MVP has been awarded based on narratives in the past. Narrative and NHL history should also have an influence on Hart Trophy voting.

This season, Celebrini became only the sixth teenager in history to record 100-plus points in a season, joining all-time greats like Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux, Dale Hawerchuk, and Jimmy Carson. Earlier this season, he joined Lemieux, Gretzky, and Crosby as the fourth teenager in NHL history with 40-plus points in 27 or fewer games. The 19-year-old is also poised to break Gretzky’s NHL record for the highest percentage of points on his team’s goals scored as a teenager.