| TEAM |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Boston Bruins | +750 | +900 |
| Vegas Golden Knights | +850 | +900 |
| Colorado Avalanche | +900 | +1100 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | +1000 | +900 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | +1000 | +1300 |
| Nashville Predators | +1400 | +1400 |
| Carolina Hurricanes | +1500 | +1400 |
| Washington Capitals | +1500 | +1500 |
| St. Louis Blues | +1800 | +1800 |
| Florida Panthers | +2000 | +3200 |
| Pittsburgh Penguins | +2000 | +1900 |
| Vancouver Canucks | +2000 | +3300 |
| New York Islanders | +2200 | +1700 |
| Dallas Stars | +2500 | +2300 |
| Arizona Coyotes | +3000 | +2700 |
| Calgary Flames | +3000 | +1800 |
| Edmonton Oilers | +3000 | +2700 |
| San Jose Sharks | +3000 | +3500 |
| Buffalo Sabres | +4000 | +3000 |
| Montreal Canadiens | +4000 | +3200 |
| Winnipeg Jets | +4500 | +4000 |
| New Jersey Devils | +5000 | +6500 |
| New York Rangers | +5000 | +8500 |
| Philadelphia Flyers | +5000 | +3500 |
| Chicago Blackhawks | +7000 | +7000 |
| Anaheim Ducks | +10000 | +4000 |
| Columbus Blue Jackets | +10000 | +6000 |
| Minnesota Wild | +10000 | +7500 |
| Detroit Red Wings | +30000 | +25000 |
| Los Angeles Kings | +30000 | +12500 |
| Ottawa Senators | +30000 | +45000 |
| Updated 11/04/2020 |
2019-2020 NHL Stanley Cup Championship Odds Betting Preview
What we’re seeing these days in the major pro leagues is that the teams that are expected to be good start out well and end the season well. What happens when the playoffs roll around is another story, but there are a lot of haves and have nots in the world of sports these days.
It turns out that the NHL is no different. The teams that were supposed to be good before the season began started out the season well and gave themselves a good head start on making it into the playoffs. Boston, Vegas, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Carolina, Washington, and St. Louis have all seen minor shifts up or down in their futures prices since before the start of the season.
The futures markets in the NHL and NBA generally don’t move all that much. A major injury would have an impact on the betting odds, but the ebbs and flows of the season that teams go through doesn’t have much of a day-to-day impact. Over the course of 82 games, the cream will always rise to the top. We rarely see an instance in the present day of teams with high expectations failing to make the playoffs.
Preseason favorites like Boston, Vegas, and Tampa Bay have seen minor movements in their odds. Even in the face of injuries, teams like Colorado, who spent some time without Gabriel Landeskog early in the season, and Toronto, who lost John Tavares for a bit, saw very mild moves down in some instances. Once those players return to the lineup, the odds generally revert back to where they were.
There have been a few early-season surprises. Dallas has gotten off to such a bad start that DraftKings and PointsBet are unsure if the Stars will align for Dallas to make a deep playoff run. They are one of the big fallers early in the season. San Jose has fallen a little bit as well, as the goaltending questions of last season are back and maybe bigger than ever.
Strong starts from the Edmonton Oilers and the Buffalo Sabres have caused a ripple effect at the bottom of the board. Ottawa, Los Angeles, and Detroit still reside among the league’s bottom feeders, but the Oilers and Sabres are starting to move towards the middle as far as Stanley Cup odds. The same cannot be said of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who were thought to be in line for a major drop-off this season. That has not only come to fruition, but it may be worse than originally thought.
The goal with futures bets is to try and catch a team at a good price before they go on a run. A team like the Calgary Flames could make its way back up the board among the Western Conference favorites sooner rather than later. There is a lot of talent on display at the Saddledome and the Pacific Division features quite a few mediocre or worse teams.
On the Eastern Conference side, it’s fair to wonder how the Pittsburgh Penguins will look when they get healthy. No team in the East has been bit quite as badly by the injury bug as Pittsburgh. We may not have reached a buy point just yet, but the Penguins are getting more bodies back in the lineup and they could be poised for a push once everybody is back in the fold.
The Florida Panthers are another team to watch. Their play has improved and a world-class goaltender like Sergei Bobrovsky is only going to struggle for so long.
Try to hop on these teams at a good buy low point and stay away from the sell high types of teams.
