Was Connor McDavid rightfully looked over as a 2024 Ted Lindsay Award finalist?

By Ryan Gagne

Modified May 08, 2024 18:33 GMT

Connor McDavid finished the 2023-24 season with 132 points, 21 fewer points than his historic 2022-23 season, where he won the Art Ross, Hart, Maurice Richard, and Ted Lindsay Awards. However, the Edmonton Oilers did not advance past the second round of the playoffs for the fourth time in his career.

Fast forward 12 months later, the Oilers are about to begin a second-round series against the Vancouver Canucks, who dominated Edmonton in the regular season 4-0, outscoring their Pacific Division rivals 21-7.

However, the biggest news in the NHL on Wednesday afternoon is that McDavid was not named as a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award, just 24 hours after being named a finalist for the Hart Trophy.

As shocking as this may be for Oilers fans, it's unsurprising for the rest of the NHL. So the big question is, does he deserve to be a nominee, or is this an oversight of the nomination committee?

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Connor McDavid was nominated for the Hart Trophy, not the Ted Lindsay Award

Last season, there was no question that McDavid was the NHL MVP, becoming only the seventh player in league history to collect over 150 points in a single season, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Phil Esposito, Bernie Nicholls, and Steve Yzerman.

However, the Oilers struggled out of the gate this season, and his production was held up in the first two months. Instead of producing at the same rate of 1.86, he dipped to 1.00 through the first 10 games of October.

Once Edmonton fired Jay Woodcroft and recruited Kris Knoblaunch, McDavid's coach from juniors, the captain began to turn things around, finishing November with 19 points.

By January 1, he had compiled 48 points in 32 games, including 35 assists, which would be his bread and butter this season. As one of the top playmakers of his generation, he helped turn a one-time 30-goal scorer, Zach Hyman, into a 54-goal scorer this season.

Zach Hyman and Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers

As the old saying goes about Lemieux, "a fire hydrant would score 40 goals with him," the same can apply to McDavid. Hyman had a career season by going to the net and pounding home goals within just feet of the crease with feeds from his captain, who finished the season with 100 helpers.

In the end, Hyman netted 35 goals with assists from McDavid (64.8%), which means that without those feeds, Hyman would barely have been a 20-goal scorer, finishing with 19.

So, at the end of the season, it makes perfect sense to be nominated for the Hart Trophy because there's a strong case that without him, Edmonton is not a playoff team and doesn't record a 16-game win streak in the middle of the season.

However, when it comes to the Ted Lindsay Award, which is given to the most outstanding player, as voted by the NHLPA, McDavid trails a handful of other NHL stars who had exceptional seasons.

Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay Lightning) singlehandedly carried his team into the postseason with a career-best 144-point season, becoming only the fifth skater in league history to reach 100 assists in a single season.

In Colorado, Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon had the best campaign in his future Hall of Fame career, scoring 140 points and keeping the scoring race as honest as possible for most of the season.

Finally, Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs) became only the second player in the salary cap era to score over 65 goals, finishing his season with 69.

On the verge of 400 career goals in just eight seasons, there's no denying Matthews' place as the most dominant scorer in the past decade, no offense to Alex Ovechkin.

Although no one in Edmonton wants to hear it, McDavid has no chance at winning any NHL hardware this summer, as Kucherov and MacKinnon had a Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire chase for the Art Ross, leaving fans checking score boxes every night.

Meanwhile, Matthews had one of the best goal-scoring seasons in 30 years, and many tuned in at the end of the season to see him score number 70.

McDavid was the king of the NHL last season and is still the best player. However, Gretzky, Lemieux, and even Bobby Orr didn't win all the yearly awards.

Not being nominated for the Ted Lindsay Award will not damage his reputation since he should be more focused on winning a Stanley Cup now. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you do in the regular season; it's how many championships you win.