2024 NHL Awards Predictions and Betting Odds

As we have reached the unofficial halfway point to the 2024 NHL regular season with the All-Star break, now is a great time to assess some of the best value and betting odds for this season’s most cherished NHL Awards.

As it currently stands, there is a lot of uncertainty within each of the six main NHL Award categories. That creates excellent betting value and opportunities when evaluating each of the contenders’ chances.

Let’s take a look at the latest NHL Awards odds, courtesy of the top NHL betting sites, and make our predictions for the following honors: the Vezina Trophy for the top goaltender, the Calder Trophy for top rookie performer, the Selke Trophy goes to the top defensive forward, the Jack Adams Award for top coach, the Norris Trophy for top defenseman, and the Hart trophy for the league’s MVP.

NHL Awards Odds

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NHL Awards Predictions

For each of the six main NHL Awards below, we will take you through what each of the awards is for, the criteria, and the betting odds to assess both the current betting favorite (and our selection to win)!

Calder Memorial Trophy Odds

The Calder Memorial trophy is awarded to the NHL’s top rookie performer. This year, much of the hype was around the most recent #1 draft pick, Connor Bedard of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Bedard quickly entrenched himself as one of the league’s premier forwards, with his patented wrist shot and shifty skating ability. He was well on track to win the Calder comfortably before a jaw injury derailed an impressive opening season.

Bedard was scoring at nearly a point-per-game pace, and single-handedly keeping his inexperienced Blackhawks team in games. He was on pace for 73 points, and even with a prolonged absence, still leads all rookies in scoring. Bedard is nursing a broken jaw, but should be back for the final six weeks of the season in late-February/early-March.

While the other candidates’ chances have increased as a result, the fact that Brock Faber and Luke Hughes play defense and do so on bad teams might just work against them a bit. Faber and Hughes are earning big minutes, but the point totals are lagging behind.

While these are future shutdown defensemen in this league, it’s impossible to ignore what Bedard has done, and will likely do upon his return. Historically, NHL voters won’t punish award recipients over an injury, and if Bedard can muster 50-ish points in 50-odd games, he’s the logical choice and worthy of being the favorite.

Frank J. Selke Memorial Trophy Odds

The Frank J. Selke Memorial trophy is awarded to the NHL’s top defensive forward. While NHL forwards are often renowned for their lofty scoring totals, many aspects on the defensive side can help to get them recognition away from the offensive zone.

This year, the current betting favorite exemplifies many of those traits. Aleksander Barkov leads the way for the Florida Panthers, routinely getting the job done at both ends of the ice. Similar to the former longtime winner of this award, Patrice Bergeron, Barkov wins faceoffs, kills all penalties, matches up regularly against the other team’s strongest forward, and still manages to have a +16 rating on one of the league’s best teams.

Voters will see that Barkov has played 42.2% of his minutes against other team’s top lines, and currently boasts a Goals Above Replacement rating of 3.6. He is crucial to what the Panthers do and is worthy of heavy consideration at plus-money.

Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings is a viable contender, though the Kings’ recent slump and tumble down the standings will not help his case. Kopitar is a two-time winner of the Selke trophy, but his usage has been scaled back this year against some of the league’s top players. Teammate Phillip Danualt has taken on some of these tougher assignments, which should be factored into play here.

Staal, Crosby, Eriksson Ek, and Hischier are all solid defensive forwards, but none of them are in the tier and have the data to back it up as Barkov does. The fact that he plays a leading role on one of the top squads in the NHL will also help voters tilt the balance in his favor.

Hart Memorial Trophy Odds

Nathan MacKinnon is the current favorite and a worthy one, but with so much time remaining in the NHL’s regular season, there will be a ton of movement with this prestigious award.

The Hart Memorial trophy is awarded to the league’s MVP, and while MacKinnon certainly leads the way in points, and 5-on-5 scoring, many of the contenders behind him should be able to close the gap in the upcoming second-half of the regular season.

Connor McDavid cannot be counted out in this race. A sluggish start and a nagging injury have the Oilers’ star playing catch-up at the moment, but his team has fought back into a playoff position and is on an impressive 16-game winning streak. McDavid can score at will, and even with a gap in points, it would surprise nobody to see number 97 easily make that up down the stretch.

Even beyond McDavid, Nikita Kucherov continues to get the job done for the veteran Lightning, single-handedly spearheading their offense on a nightly basis. That is also a team on the rise.

And don’t forget about Leafs’ sniper Auston Matthews, currently on pace for a shattering 71 goals. It has not been the season Toronto had hoped for thus far, but you can make the case that they’re only in a playoff spot because of Matthews’ prolific scoring.

All that said, there are a few very possible options for Nathan MacKinnon. Laying minus money with the Avalanche forward is not a wise bet with so many variables at play.

The Oilers’ story and remarkable charge up the standings will continue to get a lot of play and recognition from Hart trophy voters. Don’t be surprised to see McDavid at the top or near the top of the points table by season’s end. Ultimately, it will be hard to vote against the NHL’s top talent once again.

Jack Adams Award Odds

The Jack Adams Award is given each season to the NHL’s top coach. Awards like these are always fairly subjective as it remains difficult to quantify the true impact of a coach.

Generally, however, the most often used framework for winning is identifying a coach who has made a decisive improvement to a team from the previous year. Or a coach that has far exceeded expectations with their group.

This year’s odds highlight a couple of ‘Rick’s’ – Tocchet and Bowness, who are both doing great things north of the border in Canada. For Tocchet, it is remarkable to see the turnaround the Canucks have enjoyed this season.

They remain one of the top teams in the NHL’s Pacific Division, are firmly in a playoff spot, and are now in a great position to add key pieces as we approach the trade deadline. Nobody would have seen this coming after evaluating how dire the situation was in Vancouver last spring.

That said, the Canucks have some red flags, and worrying concerns as we close out the NHL’s regular season. A lot of their success can be attributed to an unsustainably high shooting percentage and save percentage.

While this is definitely a team with talent and high-end skill, they’ve struggled at stretches without the puck, and if the luck and good fortune dry up, there isn’t much depth that can be seen as inspiring. Laying minus money with Rick Tocchet right now seems riskier than what I’d want with a betting favorite.

Rick Bowness in Winnipeg is also a great contender for the Jack Adams this season, though the Jets’ playoff positioning is quite precarious. They have had an assortment of tough injuries and outside of a couple of key pieces, have struggled to score. Without key depth, Bowness might be in tough to keep Winnipeg afloat in the second half of the season.

At this point, the best value and bang for your buck lies in Edmonton with Kris Knoblauch. It is a tad surprising his odds are that high given the fact that he’s currently on a 16-game winning streak with his Oilers.

While he hasn’t been the coach for the full season, Knoblauch has most certainly ignited the turnaround in Edmonton, and has gotten a high-octane offensive team to ‘buy-in’ on the defensive end of things. Over the past two months, few teams have been more dominant defensively, and with Edmonton predicted to continue their surge up the standings, Knoblauch at +1000 offers immense betting value to win the Jack Adams Award.

James Norris Memorial Trophy Odds

The James Norris Trophy is awarded by voters to the NHL’s top defenseman each season. As is evident from the current odds at Bovada, it’s very much a two-horse race in this category.

It will quite likely come down to Quinn Hughes of Vancouver and Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche. For Hughes, it’s all about the offense. The diminutive defender currently sits top-10 in total league points and drives the attack for the high-octane Canucks. He has been lethal on the power play and is very deserving of being the favorite as we enter the NHL’s All-Star break.

That said, there have been some defensive issues for both Hughes and the Canucks as a whole. This is a team that had virtually everything going right for them in the opening months of the NHL’s regular season, and much of their success seems unsustainable. A dip in form and results is imminent, and don’t sleep on a healthy Cale Makar to fill the void.

Makar is the sport’s best two-way defender, and while some injuries this season have prevented him from featuring as regularly as he normally would, it seems like those are behind him and Makar is primed for a big second-half.

In fact, he is currently on pace to out-perform his last Norris trophy season back in 2022. The Avalanche are playing great hockey, Makar is well-insulated with a deeper and more talented roster, and Makar has currently been better than Hughes at 5-on-5 play – continuing to be a force at both ends of the ice.

Expect the voters to realize Makar’s two-way dynamic ability and reward him for this when the time for voting comes around. Hughes has been elite offensively, but at plus-money, backing Cale Makar seems to be the sharp play here.

Vezina Trophy Odds

The Vezina Trophy is awarded to the league’s top goaltender. At the All-Star Break, Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck has been the rightful leader in this category. With him between the pipes, the Jets have emerged as the league’s top defensive team, and they’ve only allowed 109 goals all season long. That is the best mark in the NHL by a good margin.

While Vancouver’s Thatcher Demko remains close in terms of odds, we aren’t keen on Vancouver’s chances in the second half of the regular season. Demko has put up some statistical anomalies with regard to his goals saved above expectation and his overall save percentage. The Canucks give up a ton of quality high-danger chances per game, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Demko’s numbers tumble even further as a result.

Boston’s Jeremy Swayman could also be seen as a decent long-shot value, given the rigid style of the Bruins’ team defense – but he often shares the net with Linus Ullmark. Given the fact that Swayman isn’t a workhorse-type top goalie, expect some of the voters to shy away from Swayman, despite the fact that his numbers remain excellent for a second straight campaign.

In Winnipeg, the Jets protect Hellebuyck, and play a safe and rigid defensive structure, and he should be the rightful winner of the Vezina trophy for the second time – his first since 2020. In December, Hellebuyck was 7-0-2, with a 1.88 goals against average, and a .934 save percentage. When he’s on, he is arguably the top netminder in the sport, and don’t expect him to concede this trophy down the stretch.