TAMPA, June 13 -- The strange thing about the NHL's Most Valuable Player is that he did not lead the league in scoring. Connor McDavid did. Nikita Kucherov finished second to him in total points and won the Hart Trophy anyway, which tells you something about how thin the line between the two has become, and how close this vote was.

Kucherov claimed his second Hart Memorial Trophy this week, the award handed to him in a surprise under the lights at the Tampa Bay Lightning's facility. He becomes one of a short list of two-time winners, and he did it in the closest MVP race the league has staged in more than two decades.

The margin was almost nothing. Kucherov finished with 1,436 voting points to McDavid's 1,426, a gap of ten, with Nathan ...