NHL Futures in 2023: Finding the Best Team Odds to Win the Stanley Cup

The low TV ratings and meager online interest that fans have accounted for so far this season has the NHL community plenty dismayed. It’s most likely nothing permanent, as the NFL and FIFA have taken turns putting on championship events this winter just as NHL teams begin to get warmed up. But the way the 2022-23 regular season has gone for the top superstars of Gary Bettman’s ponds, the commish should be glad that anyone at all is tuning in.

The NHL’s best players have watched their teams go into slumps, and not come out quickly, at least not until the promise of a berth in the 2023 Stanley Cup finals has gone glimmering. The defending champion Colorado Avalanche stagger into the All-Star Break tied for 8th place overall in the Western Conference, far from assured of a playoff berth. Connor McDavid’s talented Edmonton Oilers, who skated in scintillating games against the Avs in a playoff series last spring, are in danger of falling short of the postseason yet again.

Even the all-time greats of the sport are not assured of making the NHL playoffs in 2023. Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins needed dramatic wins just to stay afloat in the Eastern Conference seeding race prior to this weekend’s pause, and the Penguins’ typically fierce Metropolitan Division rivals from Washington D.C. have also hit an icy spell approaching the All-Star Break. In neither case has the club’s key attacker lost a battle with Father Time, such as Ronaldo losing his scoring touch in the football leagues of Europe. Crosby is leading the Penguins with 60 points while sustained by some of the NHL’s finest fellow centermen, going as deep as the Penguins’ 4th line. Moreover, Alex Ovechkin has scored 32 goals this season for the Washington Capitals.

But there’s an imminent sea-change in NHL goaltending that’s affected both teams, and not for the better.

Popular veterans have disappeared from the NHL’s leading GK ranks in large numbers, replaced by new blood that’s substantially outplaying the old guard. For example, the Dallas Stars’ Jake Oettinger and New York Islander’s Ilya Sorokin have each manufactured far better save percentages than the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevsky, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Matt Murray, and Darcy Kuemper, a postseason linchpin with the championship-caliber 2021-22 Avalanche who now toils for Washington.

The Boston Bruins’ 5-to-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup can be traced to goaltending. Linus Ullmark stands above all other NHL netminders with a Vezina-level trajectory past the halfway mark of the season. After fighting out the Stanley Cup Finals last season, Colorado and Tampa Bay deserve optimistic futures odds, but the goaltending theme underscores why Tampa Bay could be in a stronger position than Denver. Vasilevsky has won 23 games in the 2022-23 campaign and is largely seen as a victim of less-faithful checking than Tampa defenders usually produce. Meanwhile, Vitek Vanecek’s emergence as a starting netminder for the New Jersey Devils is helping the former east coast sad-sack to 14-to-1 title odds.

There are additional futures odds on the NHL betting board which are harder to fathom. The Toronto Maple Leafs stand in their familiar 10-to-1 sportsbook position despite leveling off after a hot start to the regular season, and in spite of Toronto undertaking its own generational torch-passing between the pipes as Ilya Samsonov eclipses the aging Murray. It’s also quite optimistic, and perhaps foolish, of sports gamers to help the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers to futures betting lines shorter than 20-to-1 at the All-Star Break, considering 1993 was the last time a Canadian team won the NHL’s finest hardware.

Could it finally be time for gamblers to invest in north-of-the-border Stanley Cup bids? Or do the generous forecasts for Canadian teams simply leave room for US contenders who can be found at longer, favorable odds due to so many sentimental picks on the Maple Leafs?

Stanley Cup Futures: Process of Elimination Reveals Best 2023 Picks

NHL speculators are more than willing to bet on a Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup. Toronto has compiled 31 victories as of the 2022-23 NHL All-Star Break and is drawing a betting line to win spring’s championship tourney that surpasses that of the 2020-21 champion Lightning, and which is nearly drawing as much real-money action as the defending Avalanche’s approximately 8-to-1 line at the break. It’s not a sure thing that either the Oilers or Flames will reach the Stanley Cup playoffs in April, as each club struggles to mine victories despite tremendous top-line performances from marquee stars. Yet wouldn’t you know, Edmonton and Calgary are marked as favorites to contend on sportsbook pages.

Sadly, Wagerbop must “contend” that futures picks on Canadian teams remain very unwise until further notice. The Oilers were the final northern brand to remain alive into the conference championship round in the last NHL campaign, and Edmonton’s breakdown on the blue line and in goal versus Colorado underscored the kinds of problems faced by budget-constrained Hab franchises in postseason play.

Toronto’s annual “10-to-1” futures odds are becoming a practical joke played out in tandem by bookmakers and the gamers who help to set long-term picks at short prices. Before paying for those 10-to-1 picks, we should at least wait to see if a team from Canada can reach the Stanley Cup Finals, let alone win.

There are casino games where players can take advantage of large, unwise bets made by an opponent at the table. It’s also not a good idea for a dealer to set short odds (and a high requirement for the needed casino chips to pay in) on an outcome that actually has long odds – as in, actual “chance of happening in reality” odds – to occur. There are, needless to say, plenty of trump cards that can get turned over, and lots of slots on the roulette wheel, however, the unwise dealer “loads up” the odds on one card or one color.

Whenever that happens, it’s as if there are a whole bunch of free chips on the table for the smart bettor’s taking. Sportsbook futures with mispriced odds in the ledger create a similar opportunity, except it’s not so easy to find which outcomes are priced below their real-life chance of happening since the now-expanded NHL has so many picks to place its “chips” on.

Now is the best time to pick Boston’s 5-to-1 Stanley Cup odds if you’re planning to do so, especially if Toronto continues to fall back after the All-Star Break, and it becomes apparent that there aren’t enough “casino chips” stacked up on the domestic teams. We don’t, however, recommend the Avalanche’s odds to repeat at this juncture, given the club’s still-indefinite future between the pipes.

The Carolina Hurricanes are a too-steeply priced pick for similar reasons, as netminder Frederik Andersen approaches the back-end of his NHL career, forcing the ‘Canes to go with a GK-by-committee approach featuring the Russian newcomer Pyotr Kochetkov, even as Carolina roars into the break in red hot form.

Take a crack at a set of small-unit picks on the improving Dallas Stars and New York Rangers instead, with some chips (or at least some stake) left over for the Minnesota Wild who has been rock-solid.

WagerBop’s Stanley Cup Futures Picks: Dallas (+1500), NYR (+1800), Minnesota (+1900)