Most likely Penguin NHL award winners for 2024-25

Which people with the organization could make a run at NHL hardware?

With apologies to Kris Letang’s Masterton in 2023, the Pittsburgh Penguins haven’t won a major NHL on-ice award since Sidney Crosby took the Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard trophy and Conn Smythe in 2017. Odds are they won’t be reversing that trend in 2024-25, but there are a couple interesting possibilities to stew over.

Calder Trophy

Rutger McGroarty’s odds have skyrocketed since the trade to the Penguins, up to +2400 and becoming a top-10 possibility for the NHL’s rookie of the year. Only Mario Lemieux and Evgeni Malkin have won it in franchise history, so that would be good company.

This would be a hopeful bet and training camp could make this possibility DOA if McGroarty ends up in a lower line role or assigned to the AHL. But there’s always that hope he could get some early playing time with Sidney Crosby and find some magic.

Jack Adams Award

Mike Sullivan sits at +3500 at some places for this award but I love this as a value play. Sullivan’s profile will be sky high if he can lead the Americans to victory in February’s 4 Nations Tournament. He’ll have a roster that should be right in contention to do so. And being as the Jack Adams goes to “coach who surprises and/or gets the best goaltending”, Sullivan could be in position to be a media darling and pick up momentum if he can get the Penguins towards position to qualify for the playoffs.

Granted, that scenario has a lot of “if’s” and requires a lot of positive results, which we can debate about how likely it would be to shake out that way. Bet it’s better than +3500 though.

Norris Trophy

Erik Karlsson won this award in 2023, but is +5000 for the award next season. Given the young competition from the likes of Cale Makar, Adam Fox and Quinn Hughes that have emerged and taken over as the elite of the elite, save your money when it comes to Karlsson as a future Norris. There could always be that glimmer that David Quinn joins the Pens and unlocks a big step up for Karlsson in year No. 2 in Pittsburgh but...Yeah, just save your money on this one.

Hart Trophy

Sidney Crosby is listed at an extreme long-shot of +10,000 to +15,000 for league MVP depending on where you look. Similar to Karlsson, don’t bother making a donation on this one by placing a bet. Crosby finished ninth place in voting for the Hart in 2024, but don’t be fooled. That means he picked up 38 total votes mostly on friendly hometown nods. Winner Nathan MacKinnon got 1,740 votes. Crosby could easily pick up a few votes and be top-10 again but he’s not a threat to win, no matter what happens during the season or even if it becomes a fun talking point that he’s drawing MVP consideration. The players in their prime are too good these days (MacKinnon outscored Sid by 46 points last year).

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Call me crazy but if I had to make one bet for any Penguin to win a major award, it would be for Sullivan as coach of the year. Which, admittedly, it’s the “win any award” thin that isn’t very likely to happen for the Pens this year. But the hilarity would be amazing since it would be over-due from his best coaching years in 2021 or 2022 and be more based on reputation and maybe the Team USA success at the NHL’s sanctioned international event giving him a real opportunity to get back in the general hockey public’s attention and if the Pens can exceed the general low expectations that most will have for them, it just might be enough to get some recognition.