2023’s Stanley Cup Playoffs: Opening Sportsbook Odds, Betting Trends, Eastern and Western Conference Matchups

It’s hard to blame Stanley Cup speculators for putting so much stock in regular-season wins and losses. The era in which all but the worst NHL teams coasted into a playoff berth is long gone. The consistent introduction of strong expansion teams like the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken, combined with a static number of Stanley Cup tournament seeds and the NHL’s policy of 3 total standings-points awarded for OT outcomes, makes it harder than ever to reach the playoffs with an ordinary winning season. The 2022-23 Pittsburgh Penguins reached double-digits above .500 in March and April but couldn’t crack the top 8 of the Eastern Conference and make the playoffs. Boston is pricier than a 4-to-1 sportsbook pick to win the NHL crown, following a record President’s Cup triumph that would’ve been seen as a curse by experts in ages past.

Still, there remain NHL teams on the betting board for which playoff optimism borders on the irrational. Toronto’s 10-to-1 Stanley Cup odds lead a group of Canadian teams in sportsbook-futures lines that rival most, if not all, domestic hockey teams in price and optimistic bets-placed. But we know how it goes for Canada’s teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs, or at least how it’s eventually going to go. Fresh-faced stars like Connor McDavid and Cole Caufield shine with big performances as the playoffs begin, often ramping-up gambling action on Canada’s clubs more. But somewhere along the way, things start to go south, literally. Colorado’s crushing series victory over Edmonton in last season’s Western Conference was no fluke. Only the USA’s National Hockey League club representatives have won Stanley Cup titles since the early 1990s.

Toronto is a bad pick to reach the Stanley Cup final at “Colorado” (or at least “Dallas”) betting odds. Are the Maple Leafs just as foolhardy a wager in Round 1 as they are at “10-to-1” futures odds to lift the grail?

With the NHL’s playoff bracket having been settled a few days in advance for a change, there are so many gambling markets available on each of 2023’s conference quarterfinal series as a whole that the choice hardly comes down to “Toronto or Tampa Bay.” Toronto and Tampa Bay will be performing in a series with lots of gaming opportunities to pick from – that’s a better way to put it. There’s never any need to pick a “side” in every series that you wager on unless your NHL betting interest is purely recreational (and reckless).

But before WagerBop looks at a fascinating Eastern Conference match-up of upstart vs grizzled champions, here’s a glance at the Stanley Cup playoff brackets of both fields-of-8, and its opening odds at FanDuel.

Stanley Cup Playoffs: 2023’s Series-Price Odds at FanDuel

Western Conference speculators shouldn’t be surprised that the Colorado Avalanche (-280) are garnering FanDuel Sportsbook’s series price nod over the marvelous Seattle Kraken (+225), an expansion team whose first-year success has echoed that of the St. Louis Blues of the 1960s, the Florida Panthers of the 1990s, and the Vegas Golden Knights at the end of last decade.

Still, the betting public no longer thinks of a great regular-season W/L record as a curse in the Stanley Cup playoffs, as evidenced by the short betting line on #1 seed Boston to beat the Panthers this April. That means Seattle’s 46 regulation-timed wins in the 2022-23 regular season could help the Kraken inspire some underdog bets, along with Winnipeg against Pacific Division champion Vegas.

WagerBop expected Edmonton to be slated as a slight underdog vs Los Angeles in a playoff series that should remind the NHL’s historians of the most newsworthy trade in hockey history, when Wayne Gretzky was traded from Oilers-to-Kings in the early 1990s. In spring 2023, forward Connor McDavid has a chance to play the role of “greatest” for swift Edmonton against the team-oriented SoCal club. But it’s still unexpected to see lopsided odds open in the Oilers’ favor, with McDavid’s team handicapped at (-230) series odds. Unlike the case with the 2022-23 Maple Leafs, bettors are treating Edmonton’s long and near-term odds differently.

The Dallas Stars own an impressive W/L record and a slight series price favorite’s line over Minnesota, though it’s hard to bet against our blog stuff’s own consensus Stanley Cup futures pick in the bargain-priced Minnesota Wild. We recommend the 15-to-1 futures pick over the 1-to-1 series price pick, since a methodical club like Kirill Kaprizov’s often gets on the tracks slowly, vulnerable to defeat mostly in the early rounds.

This year’s Eastern Conference quarters have their own historical bent. The opposing New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers, each 1-to-1 picks to win the 2023 Eastern quarterfinal round in 7 games or less, have a contemptuous history behind their rivalry that includes 1994’s conference finals, fatefully won by New York despite heroics from opposing GK Martin Brodeur. The Carolina Hurricanes (-192) are a solid favorite to beat the familiar New York Islanders in another Eastern Conference postseason series that begins on Monday evening.

That’s where the “familiar” ends when it comes to Eastern Conference odds this spring, as short-term has been ignored by speculators helping to set FanDuel’s weekend odds on the East’s other 2 battles to come. Florida raced to the finish line to secure a playoff berth over Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh, but the President’s Cup record-setting Boston Bruins are greater than 1-to-2 favorites to defeat Florida in the Q-Finals.

Do the Toronto Maple Leafs have more short-term momentum going than the aged, battered “Bolts” of another Florida city? Definitely. But that’s not the only reason Toronto’s caught the betting public’s eye in series-price odds. The Leafs are always a popular bet in a postseason…even Toronto’s very short ones.

Toronto vs Tampa Bay: Eastern Conference Series Odds and Prediction

Speculating on a 1st-round series is different than making Stanley Cup picks, and so we can’t necessarily blame the public for “Maple Leaf Fever” because of a conference Q-Final betting line against the veteran Lightning. However, there’s an important “if” angle Toronto-curious NHL gamers must investigate before making a series-price pick on the Maple Leafs at such a chintzy price.

Prohibitive hang-ups for Canadian teams trying to win the Stanley Cup include (first and foremost) lineup depth and goaltending. Canadian-native goalies have had so many ups and downs in the 2020s that Canada may be a slight betting underdog in Men’s Hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics, for no other reason than the USA and Russia icing netminders that gamblers trust more. That’s caused Canadian teams to look to other countries’ young goalies to beef-up the depth chart, or employ aging GKs like Mike Smith of the 2021-22 Edmonton Oilers, whose 40-something skill set was no match for Colorado’s sniping last spring. Meanwhile, when injuries pile up by the 3rd round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Dame Fortune takes no ken whether an injured athlete skates for an “Oh, Canada” team or a “rocket’s red glare” team. But the domestic team’s replacements are often far superior.

Depth won’t be an issue in the Eastern Conference quarter-finals. Toronto and Tampa Bay each coasted into automatic playoff seeds in the Atlantic Division, giving superstar cogs the opportunity to rest down the stretch. Toronto’s forward lines are all but 100% intact, and the Maple Leafs can count on goaltenders Ilya Samsonov and Matt Murray, nice to know whenever Tampa Bay can call on the same Stamkos-Point-Kucherov storm-troops it has throughout a dynasty run of championships.

But the Toronto Maple Leafs are, in fact, already weather-beaten on defense, where AHL names could begin showing up on 3rd-string pairings as early as Game 6 of the conference quarterfinals.

If the savvy Lightning pierce Samsonov for a few surprise goals early in the playoff series, then a pre-series pick of Toronto at (-150) odds becomes an exercise in nail-biting.

WagerBop thinks the Toronto-Tampa series will go to a Game 7, a sports bar-friendly “neutral” pick offered at delicious 2-to-1 payoff odds by online sportsbooks.

WagerBop’s Pick: 7 Games (Series Total Games Prop Bet) (+198)