Bruins Odd Falling for Individual Awards

The Boston Bruins’ star winger David Pastrnak and goaltender Jeremy Swayman are now facing long odds for NHL individual awards this season. Despite more than enough talent and higher hopes for the 2025-26 season, the pair are well behind the favorites according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

Pastrnak, a former Hart Trophy finalist, is listed at +3000 on FanDuel sportsbook’s NHL odds to win the league’s most valuable player trophy, trailing front-runner Connor McDavid (+200) and other top contenders like Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov. The 29-year-old right winger, who scored a whopping 61 goals just three seasons ago, remains a cornerstone of Boston’s attack but faces a crowded field of elite players vying for the Hart. Last season’s front runner Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl is getting big money from bettors for this season at -160.

We’re shaking our head that Draisaitl is still favored over McDavid, but that’s where the bettors are laying the Benjamins. Pastrnak has at least 40 goals in each of the last four seasons, and finished 11th in Hart voting last season, and eighth two seasons ago.

On the back end, might very well lie the key to the Bruins playoff hopes. Last season, the Bruins ended their eight-year playoff run with a 33-39-10 record. Their swoon earned them the seventh overall pick, and in something close to a miracle, James Hagens fell to the Bruins. Hagens was the former consensus first-overall pick and will eventually leap from Boston College to the NHL, but not this year.

The Bruins certainly aren’t one of the three best bets to win the 2026 Stanley Cup.

Swayman, 26, is coming into his prime and is the Bruins’ undisputed starting goaltender, but Swayman is a distant +4200 to win the Vezina Trophy. It’s been a couple of seasons since GM Don Sweeney chose Swayman over Linus Ullmark, who won the award, but now it’s on Swayman to rise to the challenge. According to bettors, the Bruins’ starting goalie ranks behind 14 other netminders, with Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck leading at +310, followed by the best goalies in the business, Igor Shesterkin and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Swayman’s odds reflect both skepticism about his ability to match the statistical dominance of Hellebuyck, who has won the last two Vezinas, and the doubts surrounding the Bruins’ inability to rebound from an ugly 2024-25 season.

All this, despite Swayman’s strong performance last season with a 2.53 GAA and .916 save percentage.

The Bruins are one season removed from reaching the second round of the playoffs, a year in which they bolstered their roster with additions like Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov. However, oddsmakers appear cautious about Boston’s stars standing out in a highly competitive division that includes the high-flying Toronto Maple Leafs, the resurgent Ottawa Senators, and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.

Pastrnak’s dynamic scoring and Swayman’s emergence as a full-time starter keep them in the conversation, but their current odds suggest they are long shots for hardware in 2026.