Conn Smythe odds 2027: the playoff MVP market

Conn Smythe odds price the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the market only exists for about two months a year. It closed in June 2026 on one of the strangest results in its history. Jordan Staal was 37 years and 277 days old when Carolina beat Vegas, making him the oldest winner ever, and he had opened the playoffs as a near-impossible longshot. This page covers how that market moved, the patterns that hold across six decades of voting, and how to approach the Conn Smythe Trophy odds when they reopen in April 2027. Our awards hub covers the regular-season trophies.

Conn Smythe odds right now: the market is closed

There are no live Conn Smythe prices to show you today, and any page claiming otherwise is showing you June. Sportsbooks post the market when the playoff field is set in April. A few open it late in the regular season, but the prices are wide and the limits are small. Until then, the season-long market that matters is on our Stanley Cup odds page, because the two move together: the playoff MVP comes from the champion in 55 of 61 years.

We will update this page with prices from a Canadian-licensed sportsbook once the market opens, and again at the end of each round. Prices will be marked with the date they were taken.

How the 2026 Conn Smythe market moved

The 2026 playoffs were a lesson in how late this market rewards you. Staal was available at around +50000 at some books before the first round: a third-line centre, 37 years old, on a team that was not the favourite. By the Final he was odds-on. He scored in each of the first five games, tying the record for the longest goal streak in a Final, and finished with six goals in six games. Reported closing prices below are from the end of the Final in June 2026 and varied by book.

Two things in that table matter beyond 2026. Marner led the entire postseason in scoring and still could not get shorter than +300, because his team was losing. And the eventual winner was not the Carolina player anyone would have named in April. The voters rewarded the player who decided the Final, and that is the pattern to carry into next spring.

Why the winner almost always comes from the champion

The Conn Smythe Trophy has been awarded 61 times since 1965 and has never gone to a player whose team missed the Final. Only six times has it gone to a player on the losing side.

• Roger Crozier, Detroit, 1966
• Glenn Hall, St. Louis, 1968
• Reggie Leach, Philadelphia, 1976
• Ron Hextall, Philadelphia, 1987
• Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Anaheim, 2003
• Connor McDavid, Edmonton, 2024

Four of the six were goaltenders who carried an outmatched team deep, and McDavid needed 42 points in a losing effort to break a 21-year gap. So the practical rule is simple. A Conn Smythe bet is a Stanley Cup bet with a player attached. If you would not back the team to win the Cup, do not back its star for the trophy. That is why Marner at +300 in June was a worse bet than his numbers suggested.

Recent Conn Smythe winners and their positions

The last 11 winners, with the position each played. The voting record is the best guide to what the electorate rewards.

Position trends: forwards first, goaltenders second, defence last

Seven of the last ten winners were forwards. Skaters have taken just under three-quarters of all Conn Smythes, goaltenders a little over a quarter, and defencemen roughly one in five, with Hedman in 2020 and Makar in 2022 the only blueliners to win in the past decade. Vasilevskiy in 2021 is the lone goaltender in that span.

That skew is not a rule, but it tells you where the base rate sits before the puck drops. A goaltender at the same price as a first-line centre on the same team is usually the worse bet, unless he is the reason the team is still playing. Giguere in 2003 and Ward in 2006 both won that way.

Conn Smythe records worth knowing

• Most wins: Patrick Roy is the only three-time winner (1986, 1993, 2001), and the only player to win it with two franchises, Montreal and Colorado.
• Two-time winners: Bobby Orr, Bernie Parent, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby. Parent, Lemieux and Crosby did it in consecutive years.
• Oldest winner: Jordan Staal, 37 years and 277 days, in 2026.
• Youngest winner: Patrick Roy, 20, as a rookie in 1986.
• Carolina’s two: Cam Ward won as a 22-year-old rookie goaltender in 2006, and Staal as the oldest winner ever in 2026. The franchise’s two Cups bookend the age range of the award.
• First winner: Jean Beliveau of Montreal in 1965, the year the trophy was introduced. It is named for Conn Smythe, the long-time owner and general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

How to bet the market when it reopens

The market behaves differently in each round, and the right entry point depends on how much price you are willing to give up for information.

1. First round: too wide to read. Sixteen teams, a hundred names, tiny limits. Prices here reward guessing more than analysis.
2. Second round: the Cup filter. Decide which four teams can win the Cup and only look at their top six forwards and starting goaltender. That removes most of the board.
3. Conference finals: where the value is. The field collapses to five or six names. The leading scorer on the better team tends to be priced below the bigger name on the other side. That was Staal’s window in 2026.
4. The Final: hedge, do not chase. By now the favourite is odds-on. If you hold an earlier ticket, the opposing team’s best player is the natural hedge, since one of the two will almost certainly win.

Playoff scoring totals mislead this market. Marner led the postseason in points and lost; Staal was outscored by several teammates across four rounds and won on the strength of six Final games. Voters remember the last series. Our futures betting guide covers how the stake is held through a long market like this one.

What to watch in 2026-27

Nothing is live until April 2027, so the useful work now is on the Cup side. Follow the Stanley Cup futures through the winter and note which contenders carry a single dominant scorer against a balanced attack, because balanced teams produce surprise winners like Staal. The regular-season awards move first: Hart Trophy odds will tell you who the writers already rate, and the same electorate votes for the Conn Smythe. The full championship record, including Carolina’s two Cups, is on our Stanley Cup winners page. Official voting results are published by NHL.com.

Frequently asked questions

19+ (18+ in AB, MB and QC). Odds are approximate at the time of writing and change constantly. Please play responsibly. ConnexOntario: 1-866-531-2600 for Ontario residents. Helplines for every other province are listed on our gambling awareness page.