The 16 Greatest Hart Trophy Winners in NHL History

The Hart goes to the player judged most valuable to his team, which is not the same thing as the best player alive. Nine of them went to one man; a goalie has not won it in a decade. Pick the winner whose season you would take.

1. 1
   Wayne Gretzky

   Won the MVP award nine times, eight of them in a row.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Eddie Shore

   A defenceman who won four MVPs in the 1930s, which no defenceman has matched.
   884pts
3. 3
   Connor McDavid

   Three Harts before turning 27, from the fastest player of his generation.
   783pts
4. 4
   Bobby Clarke

   Three Harts for a two-way centre who was told his diabetes would end his career.
   762pts
5. 5
   Alex Ovechkin

   Three Harts in six seasons at the start of a 20-year scoring run.
   724pts
6. 6
   Dominik Hasek

   The only goalie to win back-to-back Harts, in 1997 and 1998.
   579pts
7. 7
   Mark Messier

   Two MVPs, one in Edmonton after Gretzky left and one in New York.
   579pts
8. 8
   Mario Lemieux

   Three MVP awards, one of them the season he came back from cancer treatment.
   579pts
9. 9
   Gordie Howe

   Six Harts spread across 15 years, the last at 35.
   502pts
10. 10
    Guy Lafleur

    Back-to-back MVPs in the middle of Montreal's late-1970s dynasty.
    502pts
11. 11
    Carey Price

    The last goalie to win it, sweeping the individual awards in 2015.
    501pts
12. 12
    Jaromir Jagr

    The 1999 MVP, in the middle of five scoring titles in six years.
    413pts
13. 13
    Sidney Crosby

    Two Harts, seven years apart, either side of a concussion that cost him a season.
    413pts
14. 14
    Bobby Orr

    Three straight Harts while redefining what a defenceman was allowed to do.
    193pts
15. 15
    Howie Morenz

    Montreal's first superstar and a three-time MVP in the 1920s and 30s.
    53pts
16. 16
    Jean Beliveau

    Won the Hart in the first season the award and his captaincy overlapped.
    53pts