Once the Olympics are done it’s a race to the Stanley Cup
The post-Olympics NHL season will see each team play between 24-27 games to finish their NHL playoff push. For NHL bubble teams and even the front-runners, that means a playoff-like intensity almost every night. Betting on which teams will survive – and finding a mispriced edge – at this point of the season means banking a bigger number well ahead of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Check out the latest odds at Lucky Rebel.
NHL Playoff Picture After the Olympics
Every four years, when the NHL lets its players participate in the Winter Olympics, the NHL regular season gets a major interruption. Teams get a chance to turn around losing streaks, while win streaks get stopped in their tracks. Teams on the bubble can do a serious reset, with injuries to key players healing up. Others will have their momentum completely derailed with other injuries suffered in Milan.
So where does the sharp money find value and where do they start fading certain teams? If you’re betting Stanley Cup futures now, you’re looking hard at teams with longer odds while counting on something drastic to happen to the Avalanche. You can play outright Cup winners or focus on Conference and Division winners if MacKinnon & Co. are too much of a lock. We see the Eastern Conference with more value plays since Colorado looks so unbeatable in the West.
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning are among the small group of teams that saw a potential downside to the Winter Olympics break, with Victor Hedman getting hurt. They’re still second to the Avs in the oddsmakers’ eyes though, at +400 to win the Cup. Keep an eye out for Hedman’s status, but they do have the depth to overcome it.
Will that depth have the legs to sustain the playoff push though? While most of the league had anywhere from 1-3 players headed to Milano Cortina, Tampa sent 8 players there. That means much less rest for a full third of their starting lineup compared to every other team. That lack of rest also means a higher risk of injury for this crucial stretch where the NHL playoff picture is still unclear, even for elite clubs like the Lightning. That +400 looks pricey at the moment.
Minnesota Wild
At +2000, the Wild are as solid a value pick as you’ll find at +2000 to win the Cup this season. They’re a mid-tier priced team with top-tier speed and toughness – and hunger – to go far in the Stanley Cup playoffs. That hunger comes from not having won a single playoff round since 2015 and knowing that this year’s team has the most stacked roster in a decade.
The NHL’s highest-paid player, Kirill Kaprizov, leads the team with 70 points. The front office isn’t playing around either, picking up Norris winner Quinn Hughes well ahead of the trade deadline crunch. That same aggressive front office could be active again before the deadline. Sharps might grab the +2000 value if they front-run the team’s decision to pick up another key piece for the post-Olympic push.
The break came at the perfect time to rest up a few key players like Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy too. If both players come back early after the break as expected, and GM Bill Guerin pulls off another big move, the Wild could make noise.
Florida Panthers
If you took the Panthers in the preseason, you probably got them at a premium of +600 or so. That’s looking like a dead bet at the moment unfortunately. But at +2800 currently, the reigning Stanley Cup champs still might be high on the value bet list.
They’re battled-tested for just this type of period: 24+ games, a do-or-die feeling most nights where every opposing player gets hit, and every check is finished. No team is better suited for the NHL playoff push.
But in this year’s ultra-tight Atlantic Division, the Panthers might be in too deep a rut to climb out of.
Their captain, Aleksander Barkov, is not coming back this season. The main bright spot now is point-per-game scorer Matthew Tkachuk. He came back off LTIR just before suiting up for Team USA, and bettors might count on his return to spark the team to get back into their championship form. They also have a two-time Vezina and Cup winner, Sergei Bobrovsky, in nets. A hot, proven goalie can put any team on his back in a playoff series.
Watch the first week or so post-Olympics. The Panthers hit the break on a 1-5 skid. If they can’t turn it around fast, they’ll be too far gone in the Atlantic.
Buffalo Sabres
The Sabres’ +4500 number looks like the most surprising NHL odds on the board. What are the books seeing that we aren’t?
They fit much of the same storyline that the Wilds do, only at a much steeper number. Fast team, tough enough for the playoff grind, and a real sense of opportunity for the first time in a decade.
The Sabres are also looking like buyers ahead of the March 6 NHL Trade Deadline, and if they’re successful in adding a key piece or two, the +4500 discount will shrink. The Sabres only sent two players to the Olympics too – Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin – so they’ll be rested.
And Buffalo can get as hot as any team in the league, going 15-2 in December and January. Another streak like that over the post-Olympic second season and they’ll be in prime position come playoff time.
Montreal Canadiens
Talk to anyone outside of Montreal, and the Canadiens +3300 number to win it all in June makes sense. They’re still off the radar for most NHL betting fans.
But the Habs have proven they can hang with the best teams in the league this season. Witness their recent win streak leading up to the Olympic break. They took down Vegas, Colorado and Buffalo in less than a week, outscoring them a combined 14-7. That included a 7-3 beatdown of the mighty Avs.
Add in the March return of speedy depth forward Alex Newhook, rested superstars in Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield (both left off the Team USA Olympic roster), plus some potential moves before the NHL Trade Deadline, and that Stanley Cup number looks like solid value at the moment.