With the 2025-26 National Hockey League season set to get underway on Tuesday night, many are making their predictions for what will come to be this year.

On Monday, Daily Faceoff released its staff’s predictions for who will take home trophies at this season’s NHL Awards. While there are many other favorites for the Hart and Rocket Richard Trophies – Nathan MacKinnon and Auston Matthews – a couple of familiar faces are also in the running to win some individual hardware.

Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid and fellow scoring star Leon Draisaitl are among the favorites for a few awards, most notably the offensive ones.

McDavid was voted to win the Hart Trophy by three of DFO’s staff, with The Sheet host Jeff Marek tabbing Draisaitl to be named league MVP for the second time in his career, and first since the 2019-20 campaign. McDavid is a three-time Hart Trophy winner, last taking home the award in 2023.

Unsurprisingly, Drasaitl was a huge favorite for the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy. After being the only player to reach 50 goals last season, the German sniper has great odds of scoring the most goals in the NHL once again. He has hit the 50-goal mark four times in 11 seasons with the Oilers.

An outlier in the Rocket Richard picks is Oilers Nation Everyday host Tyler Yaremchuk. He believes McDavid has what it takes to score the most goals this season, something he did back in the 2022-23 season, when he scored a career-high 64 goals.

The hotly contested battle between the two superstars comes in the Art Ross conversation. Of the 10 DFO staff members who voted, seven picked McDavid to reclaim the scoring title, while Marek, on his lonesome, believes Draisaitl will finish with the most points this season. Marek has Draisaitl winning the Hart, Rocket Richard and Art Ross trophies.

Obviously, these prognostications are fun, and it’s way too early to tell where the chips will fall once the puck drops. However, there seems to be little doubt that McDavid and Draisaitl still have the utmost respect in circles around the game.