# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published August 21, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-16-greatest-hart-trophy-winners-in-nhl-history*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Wayne Gretzky** — score 1000/1000
   Won the MVP award nine times, eight of them in a row.
2. **Eddie Shore** — score 884/1000
   A defenceman who won four MVPs in the 1930s, which no defenceman has matched.
3. **Connor McDavid** — score 783/1000
   Three Harts before turning 27, from the fastest player of his generation.
4. **Bobby Clarke** — score 762/1000
   Three Harts for a two-way centre who was told his diabetes would end his career.
5. **Alex Ovechkin** — score 724/1000
   Three Harts in six seasons at the start of a 20-year scoring run.
6. **Dominik Hasek** — score 579/1000
   The only goalie to win back-to-back Harts, in 1997 and 1998.
7. **Mark Messier** — score 579/1000
   Two MVPs, one in Edmonton after Gretzky left and one in New York.
8. **Mario Lemieux** — score 579/1000
   Three MVP awards, one of them the season he came back from cancer treatment.
9. **Gordie Howe** — score 502/1000
   Six Harts spread across 15 years, the last at 35.
10. **Guy Lafleur** — score 502/1000
   Back-to-back MVPs in the middle of Montreal's late-1970s dynasty.
11. **Carey Price** — score 501/1000
   The last goalie to win it, sweeping the individual awards in 2015.
12. **Jaromir Jagr** — score 413/1000
   The 1999 MVP, in the middle of five scoring titles in six years.
13. **Sidney Crosby** — score 413/1000
   Two Harts, seven years apart, either side of a concussion that cost him a season.
14. **Bobby Orr** — score 193/1000
   Three straight Harts while redefining what a defenceman was allowed to do.
15. **Howie Morenz** — score 53/1000
   Montreal's first superstar and a three-time MVP in the 1920s and 30s.
16. **Jean Beliveau** — score 53/1000
   Won the Hart in the first season the award and his captaincy overlapped.

Tags: sports, hockey, legends, all-time, awards