By Only Players Staff
Updated 6/24/24 3:36am ET
Oilers star Connor McDavid is an overwhelming -3500 Conn Smythe Award favorite, ahead of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Panthers center Aleksander Barkov is the only other player with odds less than 100-to-1.
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Automated transcript is below. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anyone who’s been watching this program knows that I’ve been fascinated with the Conn Smythe Awards betting market. I usually am for a lot of awards markets. I think they’re really fun. They’re really beatable. Fake markets, as we like to say. And Connor McDavid, based on these odds at FanDuel and everywhere else, essentially, minus 3 ,500. So a foregone conclusion to win the Conn Smythe Award, regardless if the Oilers win the Cup. Now, the last player to win the Conn Smythe from the losing team in the Stanley Cup final, 2003.
That was a goalie before that was another goalie. It’s been really long since a skater from the losing team did it, but it looks like McDavid and remember it’s not like the NBA finals, where it’s just the final. It’s the entire playoff MVP. McDavid’s been fantastic and really no one from Florida has sort of taken it.
So what are the scenarios where McDavid does not win? Obviously it’d be Florida winning and Bobrovsky, I think he’s just coughed it up. Maybe if there’s a shutout and he has a million saves and he’s standing on his head. Maybe, but there’s a reason he’s 101 long shot.
Barkov would have take a hat trick, probably a hat trick, which is why he’s the only one within reasonable odds at 12 to one. So he’s obviously, you know, the center does great job. Like I could see him doing it. It would take three goals. It would take a monster effort and McDavid not playing well, but this is basically a foregone conclusion.
One thing to keep in mind, the voting procedures. All media members in every closeout game, so the last three games that’s happened, they have to submit their Conn Smythe vote with 10 minutes to go in the third period. So if Bobrovsky has a shutout, the voters won’t know it’s a shutout, finished until the end, right? So it’s kind of weird. That means Barkov has to have what, a hat trick within the first two and a half periods. I just think that element also lends itself to McDavid as well. So that’s something to keep in mind, but it’s been certainly interesting.
