We looked at updated NBA championship odds recently, and there weren’t many major changes from the start of the season. It takes a major trade or injury for NBA odds to shift dramatically, and that’s largely true in the NHL as well.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
There haven’t been any season-altering trades or injuries in this hockey season yet so the favorites to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup next June are essentially the same as in early October with slightly different numbers.
The longest Cup-winning drought in the league belongs to the Original Six Toronto Maple Leafs, who last won it in 1967. They haven’t even been back since but are +510 favorites. You want to talk about a party? If/when that city brings home the Cup, it would dwarf what the city of Chicago did when the Cubs finally won a World Series.
No team from Canada has won the Stanley Cup since 1993 when the Montreal Canadiens knocked off Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings. The last Canadian team to reach the Stanley Cup final was Vancouver in 2011. Shoot, expansion Vegas made it last season!
Second on the Cup futures are the Tampa Bay Lightning (+560), who finished with the most points in the Eastern Conference last season but lost in the East Finals in seven games to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals (+1600 to repeat). The Lightning are again loaded offensively, leading the NHL in scoring and Top 5 on the power play. The battle for the Atlantic Division title and East’s top seed could go down to the wire between Toronto and Tampa Bay. Circle the Lightning’s game on April 4 in Toronto as potentially huge.
The Nashville Predators won the Presidents’ Trophy a season ago but were ousted by the Winnipeg Jets in the West semifinals. Nashville is +660 to win its first Cup. Then there’s a drop-off to the Jets (+1300), Minnesota Wild (+1300) and Buffalo Sabres (+1300). None of those teams have won a Cup, either.
The Sabres are interesting as they were +1800 just last week. They were the worst team in hockey a season ago and are now battling for the most points in the East. The Atlantic Division is simply stacked because the Sabres and Boston Bruins (+1400) are also located there. With the current playoff structure, that makes it much tougher for an Atlantic team to reach the Stanley Cup final.
