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Morning Coffee: McDavid makes history as closing favourites sweep NHL Awards
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Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe, and Connor McDavid.
That’s the list of players who have won both the Hart Memorial Trophy on three or more occasions and the Art Ross Trophy on five or more occasions all-time.
McDavid, who opened at +300 odds to win the Hart at FanDuel last summer, also became just the fourth player in NHL history to win that award three times before turning 27 years old.
Last night’s NHL Awards show went largely as expected, with all of the closing favourites at FanDuel taking home the hardware.
We also got a first look at the early odds for some of next season’s NHL awards futures.
This is the Morning Coffee for Tuesday, June 27, 2023.
McDavid makes history as closing favourites sweep NHL Awards
McDavid closed as a -10000 favourite to win the Hart Memorial Trophy at FanDuel.
That’s what happens when you become the first player to lead the entire NHL in goals, assists and points in a season since Gretzky did it in 1986-87.
McDavid’s 153 points were the most in a single season since Lemieux recorded 161 in 1995-96.
He’s led the league in points in each of the past three seasons and five times overall in his career.
Looking ahead to next season, McDavid is once again the obvious favourite to win the Hart. This time he opened at nearly even-money to win that award at +125 odds.
That’s a significant cut from +300 to win that award last season. Auston Matthews is the second choice to win the Hart at +850 odds.
Nathan MacKinnon (+950), David Pastrnak (+1000), Leon Draisaitl (+1000) and Matthew Tkachuk (+1000) round out the top six choices to win that award at FanDuel.
Meanwhile, Erik Karlsson took home the Norris Trophy after closing at -550 to win that award following a season in which he ranked 11th among all skaters with 101 points.
It was the first 100-point season by a defenceman since Brian Leetch recorded 102 points in 1991-92. No other defenceman finished with more than 76 points.
Karlsson could be found at +6000 odds to win the Norris at FanDuel at this time last summer.
He’s currently +1300 to repeat as the eighth choice to win that award next season.
Cale Makar (+240), Adam Fox (+650) and Miro Heiskanen (+700) are the top three choices at FanDuel.
Linus Ullmark was an unexpected Vezina Trophy winner after he opened at +7500 to win the award last summer.
Ullmark closed as a -5000 favourite at FanDuel.
Matty Beniers took home the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie after finishing with 57 points.
Beniers opened +500 and closed as a -750 favourite to win that award at FanDuel.
Do you want to take a guess at who the Calder Trophy favourite at FanDuel will be once that market opens?
I’ll give you a hint – his name will be the first one called at the NHL Entry Draft on Wednesday night.
A FanDuel Best Bet for Tuesday night
On Monday morning, I made the Texas Rangers -1.5 -104 my FanDuel Best Bet for last night’s MLB slate.
Fading Matthew Boyd was a large part of the reason for it. When he gave up a home run to the first batter that he faced I was pretty happy.
However, Boyd left the game with an injury in the first inning, and the Tigers’ relief pitchers combined to give up just one earned run the rest of the game in a 7-2 win.
It’s safe to say that game did not go the way I expected.
This morning, I’m turning the page with my first NRFI bet of the week for my FanDuel Best Bet.
The Atlanta Braves have one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball. Tonight, the Minnesota Twins will turn to Joe Ryan to slow them down.
Ryan is coming off a complete-game shutout win over the Boston Red Sox and is currently the seventh choice to win the AL Cy Young award at +1600 odds.
He’s 8-4 with a 2.98 ERA overall this season.
He also owns a 13-2 No Run First Inning record.
The Braves will counter with Bryce Elder, who also owns a 13-2 NRFI record this season. Elder has only given up one run in his last 13 innings of work overall.
I just need him and Ryan to get through the first inning tonight without giving up a run.
I’ll take the NRFI in tonight’s game between Atlanta and Minnesota as my FanDuel Best Bet at -113 odds.