Who will win the NHL's top awards this season? Here are AP's predictions

Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon, Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov, Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Toronto's Auston Matthews are all in the running to win the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP.

MacKinnon has carried the top-heavy Avalanche into the playoffs, Kucherov has played a role in half the Lightning's goals, McDavid got the Oilers back in it after a horrid start and Matthews is on the verge of becoming the first to player to hit 70 goals in a season in more than 30 years.

McDavid also became just the fourth player to record 100 assists in a season, and Kucherov is one away with a game left.

“There’s a lot,” Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said. "These kind of numbers have not been reached in a long time. ... It’s going to be close, but you obviously know who has my vote.”

Here is who AP's hockey writers think will take home the hardware on these regular-season awards in June (all stats through Tuesday):

Lage: MacKinnon. It’s time for the superstar to win the award. Five times he has finished in the top six, and he has crushed his career highs in goals, assists and points for one of the NHL’s best teams.

Wawrow: Matthews. There have been only 14 times a player has scored 70 goals in a season, and none since Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne had 76 apiece in 1992-93. Matthews simply approaching that number and representing 23.4% of his team's goal total is too hard to overlook.

Whyno: Kucherov. While MacKinnon winning would add an important honor to his career, Kucherov has 53 more points than his next-closest teammate.

Lage: Quinn Hughes. Vancouver has had a stunning turnaround and the 24-year-old has had a lot to do with it. The Canucks have been able to count on the durable defenseman being in the lineup and producing, more than doubling his previous career high in goals.

Wawrow: Hughes. Sure, the Predators don't come close to making the playoffs without Roman Josi. But, the Canucks don't go from missing the playoffs by 12 points last year to winning the Pacific Division without Hughes.

Whyno: Roman Josi. The Predators' late 16-0-2 run was a reflection of Josi's monster play as a point-a-game player. Nashville's captain also has the most goals among defensemen with 23.

Lage: Connor Bedard. The No. 1 overall pick in the draft lived up to the hype, averaging roughly a point a game despite teams trying to shut him down while playing for Chicago, one of the worst teams in the league.

Wawrow: Bedard. Whatever questions faced the 5-foot-10, 185-pound, 18-year-old forward were answered in a season he led all rookies in points despite missing six weeks with a broken jaw.

Whyno: Brock Faber. While Bedard has yet to play a meaningful game because the Blackhawks are far from contention, Faber skated 25 minutes a night for Minnesota as the Wild tried to make the playoffs. That's sixth among all players, and he has 46 points.

Lage: Aleksander Barkov. The 2021 winner has finished among the top eight in voting six times. The two-way player was among league leaders in plus-minus and averaged more than a point per game for Florida, suiting up in 73 of 82.

Wawrow: Jordan Staal. Carolina has overcome a rash of goaltender injuries, and Staal's defensive-minded play contributed to the Hurricanes ranking among the NHL's top five in goals against.

Whyno: Staal. The Hurricanes captain has yet to win the Selke, and no better time than now given his central role in anchoring Carolina's shutdown line and winning 58.1% of his faceoffs.

Lage: Connor Hellebuyck. The 2020 winner has been spectacular this season. Hellebuyck gave up fewer than 2.50 goals a game to lift Winnipeg to a 100-point season for the first time since 2018, when the Jets reached the conference final for the first and only time in franchise history.

Wawrow: Hellebuyck. The 30-year-old from Michigan gets the nod ahead of Florida's Sergei Bobrovsky for a few reasons, including enjoying 36 starts in which he allowed two or fewer goals. Bobrovsky did so in 32 starts and on a Panthers team regarded for being defensively responsible.

Whyno: Hellebuyck. His save percentage is best in the NHL among goalies with 50 or more starts, and his goals-against average is second only to Bobrovsky's. Just give him the trophy.

Lage: Rick Tocchet. He took over in Vancouver when Bruce Boudreau was fired midway through last season and made the most of the opportunity. The Canucks were considered a middle-of-the-pack team at best before the season started and ended up earning more points than any season for more than a decade.

Wawrow: Tocchet. The 60-year-old showed potential in making the Arizona Coyotes competitive during his four-year stint in the desert. And that's carried over in the Pacific Northwest where he's getting the best out of a talented team that underachieved last season.

Whyno: Spencer Carbery. Washington — with its minus-37 goal differential, worst of any playoff team since 1991 when 16 of 21 teams in the league made it — on paper had no business reaching the postseason but here they are. Carbery pushed all the right buttons from start to finish.

Lage: Patrick Kane. The 35-year-old winger revived his career with Detroit, bouncing back from hip surgery. The three-time Cup champion and 2016 MVP was kind with everyone he crossed paths with, though goaltenders didn’t love that he still has quick hands and a slick shot.

Wawrow: Jaccob Slavin. The Hurricanes defenseman has single-digit penalty minutes despite logging nearly 21 minutes of ice time per game and in a rough-and-tumble division.

Whyno: Slavin previously won this award in 2021, and he deserves it again based on the defensive matchups he is tasked with, taking just four minor penalties in 81 games.

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews (34) celebrates his goal against the Detroit Red Wings during the second period of an NHL hockey game Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Toronto. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)

Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) reacts to his goal against the Minnesota Wild during an NHL hockey game Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/Bart Young)

Ottawa Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot (72) steals the puck from Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov (86) during the second period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, April 11, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — A convicted sex offender is asking the Norwegian Supreme Court to declare that social media access is a human right.

The case before the court Thursday involves a man who molested a minor and used the Snapchat messaging app to connect with young boys.

The unidentified offender was sentenced last year to 13 months in prison and banned from using Snapchat for two years.

His lawyers argue that depriving him of his account is unlawful under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case turns on how vital social media have become for freedom of expression, even though the court must decide the case through laws that predate such sites.

“The case raises important questions about the extent to which the state can restrict access to social media platforms, which are significant tools for exercising the right to freedom of expression and maintaining social connections,” defense lawyer John Christian Elden said.

A November 2023 appeal against the ban failed with the state successfully arguing it was “proportionately measured against the fact that the defendant has used Snapchat to exploit children sexually.” The Appeal Court added that he still had the right to use other social media. If the Supreme Court also upholds the decision, the offender could attempt to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

The European convention has been used before to test the limits on Norwegian justice. Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who murdered 77 people in 2011, lost a court challenge in February that argued being held in isolation while serving his prison sentence amounted to inhumane punishment under the convention.

Signatories to the ECHR agree to abide by 18 articles guaranteeing citizens rights including life, liberty and freedom of expression. Norway was the second country to ratify the convention in 1952, after the United Kingdom.

Snapchat, run by Snap Inc., allows users to send and receive messages that disappear once they are read. Users also can physically locate other users who opt in to location tracking.

Snap prohibits child sexual exploitation on the app but allows accounts to be create anonymously. In an email it said, “when we disable accounts for sexual exploitation and grooming behavior, we also take steps to block the associated device and other accounts connected to the user from creating another Snapchat account.”

Snap disabled 343,865 accounts connected with child sexual exploitation in the second half of 2023. It sanctioned 879 accounts in Norway though it is not clear how many of these were permanently disabled.

The Norwegian court will issue its ruling in the coming weeks.

A view of the interior of the Supreme Court, in Oslo, Oct. 31, 2023. A convicted sex offender is asking the Norwegian Supreme Court to declare social media access is a human right. The case before the court Thursday, May 2, 2024 involves a man who molested a minor and used the Snapchat messaging app to connect with young boys. (Martin Solhaug Standal/NTB Scanpix via AP)