Hart Trophy - Sergei Fedorov

Lore & Background

Fedorov was one of the first hockey players to defect from his native Soviet Union in order to play in the National Hockey League (NHL). While playing with Detroit, he won the Stanley Cup three times, as well as the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player in 1994. After leaving the Red Wings in the summer of 2003, Fedorov played stints with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Washington Capitals before retiring from the NHL in 2009.

He played in over 1,200 NHL games and scored 483 goals in the NHL. He is a three-time Olympian, the first European-trained player to win the Hart Trophy and is considered to be one of the best playoff performers in NHL history. In 2017, Fedorov was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players" in history. Fedorov was considered one of the best players in the world from the 1990s to the early 2000s.

He last played for Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL, where he was made captain in early September 2011. He was also an ambassador for Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Fedorov was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 9, 2015, and to the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 2016. On August 19, 2025, the Red Wings announced that they would retire Fedorov's no. 91 jersey on January 12, 2026. Fedorov is the 9th Red Wing to have their jersey retired by the team.

Reader's Guide

Fedorov was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the fourth round, 74th overall, of the 1989 NHL entry draft. He defected from the Soviet Union in July 1990. During the 1993–94 season, Fedorov's outstanding play earned him the Hart Memorial Trophy, the Frank J. Selke Trophy, and the Lester B. Pearson Award. He finished second in scoring behind Wayne Gretzky with 56 goals and 120 points.

In the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season, Fedorov finished second on the Red Wings in points with 50 (20 goals and 30 assists) in 42 games. That season, in a game against Los Angeles on February 12, Fedorov scored all four of Detroit's goals in a 4–4 tie. Fedorov won another Selke Trophy in 1996 after scoring 39 goals and 107 points in 78 games. In the 1996–97 season, he was a member of the Red Wings' first Stanley Cup championship team since 1955, leading the team playoff scoring with 20 points in 20 games, including 8 goals.

During the regular season, Fedorov achieved the rare feat of scoring five goals in a single game, as he registered all of Detroit's goals in a 5–4 overtime win against the Washington Capitals on December 26, 1996. It was also the first time in NHL history that a player completed a quintet of goals in overtime. In the mid-1990s, Fedorov became part of the Red Wings' Russian Five. After a lengthy holdout to start the 1997–98 season, Fedorov signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes worth up to $38 million, including bonuses.

The Red Wings matched the offer on February 26, 1998. The $28 million Detroit paid Fedorov for 43 total games in 1997–98 remains the largest single-season amount paid to an NHL player (; this record has been surpassed multiple times since).