RALEIGH, N.C. — The Winnipeg Jets are off to a hot start, and their Central Division rivals, the Minnesota Wild — led by Kirill Kaprizov — aren’t far behind. Alexander Ovechkin, chasing Wayne Gretzky’s all-timegoals record, was putting the puck in the net more than any other player this season before suffering a knee injury this week. Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Maker have willed the paper-thin Colorado Avalanche to just over .500 while the team gets players back from injuries and waits for its goaltending to arrive.
Those are arguably the biggest stories of the young NHL season. Notice something missing? It’s the Carolina Hurricanes, who have shrugged off concerns that their offseason departures would lead to them taking a step back. Some even predicted coach Rod Brind’Amour’s team would struggle to make the playoffs for a seventh consecutive season.
Instead, Carolina had the league’s second-best record entering Wednesday’s games and has scored at least four goals in 11 of the last 12.
A big reason for that is Martin Necas.
The 25-year-old right wing is third in the league with 30 points, trailing only MacKinnon and Kaprizov. His 11 goals are tied for 11th in the league, and only four players have more than Necas’ 19 assists.
The season isn’t quite 25 percent done, but people are already talking about the Hart Trophy. They’re not, however, mentioning Necas. The Czech winger deserves consideration, so here are the reasons why Necas should be considered one of the front-runners for league MVP, as well as some counterarguments against his case.
Pro: It’s all about the numbers
In the last 23 seasons, the Hart Trophy has gone to a player who finished either first or second in NHL scoring or led the team in goals every year — with three exceptions: goalies Jose Theodore (2001-02) and Carey Price (2014-15), and Taylor Hall (2017-18).
If you pile up the points, you can’t be denied consideration, and right now, Necas is making his case near the top of the leaderboard.
Con: Is it just a heater?
Necas’ talent is undeniable. Brind’Amour and others in the organization have said before he’s the most skilled player on the roster, but outside of his 71-point season in 2022-23, he’s failed to put it all together.
Thirty points in 17 games isn’t a fluke, but can he keep playing at a 140-point pace — nearly twice the output from his best NHL season — for 82 games?
Pro: The “most valuable” argument
As mentioned above, the Hurricanes weren’t expected to again be at the top of the NHL standings after a mini-overhaul that saw several key players leave in free agency. Furthermore, could anyone have predicted Carolina being this good with Sebastian Aho still looking for his first even-strength goal a week before Thanksgiving?
For @TheAthletic: Sebastian Aho hasn’t yet scored at 5-on-5 this season. What’s the reason for his slow start?https://t.co/GIfpvOkyDl
— Cory Lavalette (@corylav) November 15, 2024
The Hurricanes wouldn’t be where they are right now without Necas. While Kaprizov has been dominant for the Wild — second on Minnesota’s scoring list is Matthew Boldy, 14 points behind Kaprizov’s 33 points with 19 — Necas has had the same impact for Carolina. The Hurricanes’ second-leading scorer, Andrei Svechnikov, is also 14 points behind Necas, and only Jack Roslovic — who couldn’t stop scoring at the start of the year but hasn’t found the net or registered a point in his last five games — is within shouting distance with nine.
Con: System, system, system
Brind’Amour admitted Necas is “driving the ship” for the Hurricanes right now, but perhaps it’s really the coach who has his team riding high early in the year. No matter what injuries Carolina is stricken with — hello, goaltending depth — or what obstacles the team faces, Brind’Amour guides them through the storm and to success.
You’ve heard of players splitting the vote on awards, but could Brind’Amour’s Jack Adams Award case influence the Hart Trophy ballot?
Pro: Powering the power play
Necas is making the most of the four-plus minutes of power-play time he’s getting each night on the top unit. Carolina has made Necas a focal point on the man advantage this year, and it has paid off. His 12 power-play points trail only MacKinnon and Maker, who each have 13 but have played two more games than Necas this season. His eight primary points — goals plus primary assists — trail only Makar’s nine.
His production has helped the Hurricanes to rank eighth in the league on the power play at 23.7 percent.
Con: More of the same
The Hurricanes’ power play has been much maligned during Brind’Amour’s tenure, but last year, Carolina finished second in the league at 26.9 percent. They did that with Necas playing on the second unit, getting 2:07 of man-advantage ice time last year — 10th overall on the team and ninth if you count Michael Bunting and Jake Guentzel as one power-play entity for the year. The Hurricanes, as a team, had 191 power-play points a year ago. Necas accounted for 13.
The Hurricanes showed they could be successful on the power play a year ago with Necas in a limited role, so doing so again this year shouldn’t be a surprise, even if No. 88 is leading the way.
Pro: Improved defense
The best defense is a good offense, so it makes sense that Necas’ defensive numbers look better this season. His goal for percentage at five-on-five (62.07 percent; 18 for, 11 against) rivals Kaprizov (70 percent; 20-9) and is better than MacKinnon (54.84 percent; 17-14).
Eleven goals against in 17 games isn’t fantastic — that projects to 53 goals allowed for an 82-game season — but it’s still on par with last year’s 52. That might not sound like much of a plus, but Necas was on the ice for 46 five-on-five goals for a year ago. Right now, he’s projected to have just under 87.
Con: No kill zone
One way Necas could have potentially differentiated himself from MacKinnon and Kaprizov would be to kill penalties. Three seasons ago, Necas played 78 seconds per game on Carolina’s top-ranked PK. A year later, in 2020-21, his short-handed ice time dipped to 58 seconds per game, though the Hurricanes were again near the top of the league at 84.4 percent — second only to Boston.
Since then, Necas’ penalty-killing has been essentially nonexistent. He played 27 seconds per game in 2021-22, and then, as Seth Jarvis grabbed more PK minutes, Necas logged a total of 8:28 the following year. This season is about the same — he’s seen 72 seconds on the ice short-handed, and none have been by design.
Neither Kaprizov (9:39 total short-handed minutes since 2020-21) nor MacKinnon (18:21 total) is relied on to kill penalties, so it’s an area where Necas could have stood out. But even with Jarvis out with an upper-body injury, Necas hasn’t sniffed the PK.
Seeing that Necas plays under 18 minutes a game to MacKinnon’s 23:19 and Kaprizov’s 22:11 — second and fourth, respectively, in the league among forwards — he needs to find a way to do more with less to keep up.
So what does it all mean?
As mentioned in the first item, it’s often all about the flashy numbers. If Necas can continue on this blistering scoring pace, voters won’t be able to ignore his candidacy. The chances of being a finalist or winner increase if the Hurricanes are near the top of the standings at the end of the regular season, and one could argue that Carolina is better positioned for long-term success than Colorado or Minnesota.
MacKinnon and Maker will also have to deal with vote-splitting, which could have hurt MacKinnon last year when he won the Hart but didn’t (Makar finished third in Norris Trophy voting but didn’t receive a single vote for MVP).
Kaprizov is the front-runner right now, even if that’s unfair to Necas and all he’s done. He’s long been considered one of the league’s players, and there is often a “it’s his time” trend to voting when all else is equal. He’s received votes for the Hart three times in his four-year NHL career: He finished 17th in 2022-23, seventh the year before, and 15th as a rookie in 2020-21 when he ran away with the Calder Trophy vote as the league’s top rookie.
That Necas has never received a vote for any NHL award will hurt him, even if he somehow manages to keep scoring at a 26 percent clip and gets to 130 or 140 points.
As I said at the top, it’s early. Necas’ season has been one of the most remarkable starts in team history, and his star turn has taken Carolina from a perceived playoff possibility to a Stanley Cup contender in just 5 1/2 weeks.
Even if Necas continues his otherworldly play and isn’t at the top of the heap when April’s ballots are tallied, his explosive season will have been enough to prove wrong many of the doubters — both of him and the Hurricanes.
(Photo of Martin Necas: James Guillory / Imagn Images)
