The Colorado Avalanche has two of the three best players in the NHL this season, according to their peers.
Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar were named Wednesday as two of the three finalists for the Ted Lindsay Award. The award, voted on by the members of the NHL Players’ Association, is for “the most outstanding player.”
MacKinnon won the award last season. He would be the first player to repeat since Connor McDavid won in 2017 and 2018.
Now a four-time finalist for the award, MacKinnon had 32 goals and 116 points this season, which was second in the league. He missed the final three games of the season with a minor injury, yielding a chance to win the scoring title for the first time in his career.
Makar is a first-time finalist for this award. He’s likely to win the Norris Trophy for the second time after leading all NHL defensemen with 30 goals and 92 points this season. Both were new franchise records.
Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov, who led the NHL with 121 points, is the other finalist. MacKinnon and Makar are the first set of teammates to be named finalists since the award was renamed for Ted Lindsay in 2010.
