Macklin Celebrini Leads the Early Hart Trophy Race
Macklin Celebrini is the early-season favorite to win the Hart Trophy, and he's only 20 years old. The San Jose Sharks captain hasn't even hit the meat of his career yet. And the hockey world is already handing him the most prestigious individual award in the sport. That's how loud his start has been.
Why is Macklin Celebrini the Hart favorite?
The NHL.com Trophy Tracker, published October 8 to open the 2026-27 season, asked 16 NHL.com writers and editors to vote.
Eight of them put the Sharks captain first on their ballot. Celebrini finished with 67 voting points.
The gap matters.
Connor McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers center, got 59 points.
Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche got 54. McDavid and MacKinnon each pulled four first-place votes.
So this isn't a coin flip where the young guy edges out the veterans.
It's half the panel saying Celebrini is already the best player in the league right now.
The résumé backs it up.
Last season he finished fourth in NHL scoring with 115 points, 45 goals and 70 assists. And the hype machine is real: he's been featured in GQ Magazine and NHL In Focus. If he pulls it off, he'd be the fourth-youngest player in league history to win the Hart. Think about that. McDavid and MacKinnon are in their primes. And a 20-year-old captain on the Sharks has the early edge on both of them.
What happened to Jacob Melanson?
While San Jose rides high, Seattle got devastating news. Kraken forward Jacob Melanson is out indefinitely after being diagnosed with an anterior mediastinum hematoma with a vascular pseudo aneurysm. That announcement came October 10, nine days after the injury itself.
It started as a routine upper-body injury. Melanson got hurt in Seattle's season opener, a 6-1 win at the Calgary Flames on October 1. He logged 9:31 of ice time and fired one shot on goal before leaving the game, per Russian Machine Never Breaks.
Nothing about that description prepares you for the diagnosis that followed.
The Kraken placed him on injured reserve Saturday. In their statement, the team said "Jacob will continue to be evaluated and monitored closely by the medial staff in Seattle through the healing process for a gradual progression to return to hockey." Translation: there's no timetable. And this is bigger than hockey.
What does Melanson's injury mean for the Kraken lineup?
This is where the season gets hard for Seattle. "Out indefinitely" with a "gradual progression" back means the coaching staff can't plan around a return date. Every lineup sheet the Kraken write for the foreseeable future has a hole in it.
That's the day's real storyline behind the scores. Depth forwards don't grab headlines like a Hart race, but they win you shifts in March. Seattle opened the year with a convincing 6-1 win in Calgary, so the season didn't start poorly. Losing a regular nine days into the campaign forces reshuffling right when a young roster is trying to build chemistry.
Watch how they compensate. Coaches rarely replace a depth piece one-for-one; they shuffle three lines to hide one absence. If Seattle's second and third lines start producing early, they'll survive this. If the scoring dries up, the hole in the lineup becomes a hole in the standings.
Macklin Celebrini's Hart push: three quick questions
Who won the Hart Trophy last season? Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning. He finished fourth in this poll with 28 points, a reminder of how fast the conversation flips when a new season starts.
Is Celebrini the youngest player ever to win the Hart? Not yet. He'd be the fourth-youngest winner in league history if he takes it home. There's a difference between "youngest ever" and "one of the youngest ever," and at 20 he has room to chase the record later.
When will Jacob Melanson return for the Kraken? Nobody knows. He's out indefinitely, on injured reserve, and Seattle is only committing to a gradual progression. Any return date you see elsewhere is a guess until the team says otherwise.
What to watch tonight
So we've got the Macklin Celebrini Hart Trophy push heating up in San Jose and the Jacob Melanson injury hanging over Seattle's lineup, all in the first weeks of the 2026-27 season. That's hockey: one market celebrating a generational talent, another holding its breath for a teammate's health.
Tonight, keep your eye on the Kraken. Can they paper over Melanson's absence and keep the momentum from that 6-1 opener in Calgary? And every time the Sharks hit the ice, ask yourself one question: are you watching the fourth-youngest Hart Trophy winner in NHL history, or just the start of something even bigger?