The NHLPA has announced the nominees for the 2024 Ted Lindsay Award. Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon, and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews are all up for the award this year.
The Ted Lindsay Award, which is voted on by the members of the NHLPA, is given annually to “the most outstanding player in the NHL.” Kucherov took home the award in 2019, and Matthews won it in 2022. MacKinnon is still looking for his first Ted Lindsay Award win.
Kucherov is coming off a career season in Tampa Bay in which he set new career highs in assists (100) and points (144). Those 144 points have already given Kucherov the second Art Ross Trophy of his career as the top point-scorer in the NHL. Kucherov is also a nominee for the Hart Trophy as the league MVP.
Matthews fell just shy of the 70-goal mark in 2023-24, finishing the season with 69 tallies. That led the league by a relatively wide margin of 12 goals and gave Matthews the third Rocket Richard Trophy win of his career. In addition to lighting the lamp at a torrid pace, Matthews also posted some solid defensive impacts and won the respect of his peers in the process.
MacKinnon was a man on a mission this season, and he set new career highs in goals (51), assists (89), and points (140). That point total blew MacKinnon’s previous career high of 111 out of the water. There were stretches of the regular season in which MacKinnon carried an Avalanche roster that was plagued by injury or inconsistency, and he produced the best year of his already impressive career.
The winner of the Ted Lindsay Award will be announced at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas next month.
