The Hart Memorial trophy is awarded to the league’s MVP each season by the Hockey Writers association. This year’s preseason favorite, Connor McDavid, is so far honoring his backers by drifting into an even lower price halfway through the season. Here are your updated Hart Memorial odds as well as our reasoning behind some of the potential winners.
You can bet on any of these hockey players to win the Hart Memorial Trophy at one of the top US betting sites.
Hart Memorial Trophy Odds Update
- Connor McDavid (-300)
- David Pastrnak (+1400)
- Nikita Kucherov (+1600)
- Jason Robertson (+1800)
- Tage Thompson (+2100)
- Mikko Rantanen (+2500)
- Jack Hughes (+2500)
- Sidney Crosby (+2800)
- Auston Matthews (+3300)
- Leon Draisaitl (+3300)
Hart Memorial Trophy Trends and History
- The Previous 15 winners have come from forwards with the exception of 2014/15 when goaltender Carey Price won the trophy.
- Just like the Vezina trophy, it’s almost impossible for players to win this trophy if their team hasn’t made the playoffs, with it only happening on four occasions in its 99-year history. The last time it occurred was in 1988.
- The average age of the winners over the past 10 seasons has been 25 and Connor McDavid was the youngest-ever winner at 20 years old in 2017.
- Only 11 different players have won the award back to back and the “great one” Wayne Gretzky won the award eight years in a row.
- The last player to win back-to-back awards was Alex Ovechkin in 2008-2009.
Hart Memorial Trophy Potential Winners
Connor McDavid -300 (Edmonton Oilers)
Connor McDavid was available to win the Hart Memorial trophy at -105 preseason, as we can see from the odds above, he has since drifted in -300 with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review). McDavid did drift out to +180 less than two weeks ago but has since gone even lower than beforehand, it’s unlikely he will hit odds that high again this season.
McDavid is already 15 points clear of the second-highest player in the NHL (who else but his own teammate Leon Draisaitl). McDavid is without a doubt the best player in the NHL right now, yes there are a lot of impressive and legit world-class players, but McDavid has something special.
He leads both the goalscoring charts (37 goals) and assists charts (46). McDavid will likely win multiple Hart memorial trophies throughout his career, if he secures this season’s, it will be his third overall.
We can’t advise anybody laying -300, but we believe he will likely win the trophy even if the Oilers go out in the early rounds of the playoffs. Although if they don’t even make the playoffs he could be in trouble, so maybe keep an eye on whether or not the Oilers will make the playoffs to see if their value moves elsewhere.
David Pastrnak +1400 (Boston Bruins)
The best thing about Pasternak’s massive +1400 NHL odds is the fact that the Boston Bruins could realistically win the Stanley Cup this season as they are without a doubt the best team in the league right now sitting with an overall record of 34-5-4 and are comfortably top of the Eastern Conference and entire NHL standings.
Although the Bruins are an all-around package, the middle piece of that puzzle is Czech player David Pastrnak who has scored 62 points, scoring 35 and assisting 27. Pastrnak is on course for his best-ever seasonal points return with a whopping 118 points projected for the end of the regular season, which is 20 points more than his previous best of 98 in 2019-20.
If Pastrnak can take the Bruins all the way to the Stanley Cup finals and become the MVP in the finals as well as finishing a solid third overall in the points standings then we can’t see any reason why McDavid couldn’t be beaten, especially if the Oilers go out early or fail to make the playoffs. At +1400 we like this NHL pick for a half-unit bet.
Nikita Kucherov +1600 (Tampa Bay Lightning)
The 2018-19 Hart Memorial Trophy winner, Nikita Kucherov has scored 17 goals and assisted 45, leaving him just one assist behind Connor McDavid having played three games less. Realistically Nikita Kucherov will have to go along a similar pathway as David Pastrnak if he were to win this year’s Hart Memorial.
Kucherov would likely need a deep playoff run, Stanley Cup finals at best with the Tampa Bay Lighting, but that being said it’s not impossible to believe the Lighting can get to their third finals in four seasons as they have been solid throughout this season going 28-13-1.
Kucherov is third overall (level with Pastrnak) with 62 points. Kucherov is projected to finish on 121 points this season, which would be his second-highest total since having 128 in 2018-19 (the year he won the Hart Trophy).
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
