- Sportsbooks are starting to post Stanley Cup futures odds for the 2022-2023 National Hockey League (NHL) season.
- The Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning and the Toronto Maple Leafs are the top three teams on the betting board.
- The Arizona Coyotes are the biggest longshots to win the Stanley Cup at +25000.
The Colorado Avalanche are the 2021-2022 Stanley Cup Champions, meaning that the Tampa Bay Lightning’s championship streak is stopped at two straight. It also means that the last team to win more than two consecutive Stanley Cups will remain the New York Islanders, who ran off four straight between 1980 and 1983. Not that winning back-to-back Stanley Cups is anything to be ashamed of. The Lightning are only the second team to win back-to-back since 2000 joining the 2016 and 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins.
Based on the NHL futures betting odds for the 2022-2023 season, the Colorado Avalanche have a solid opportunity to become the next ‘back to back’ winner. BetOnline.ag has posted their futures prices to win the 2023 Stanley Cup and have installed the Avs as a +400 favorite. Not a huge surprise that the Tampa Bay Lightning are right behind Colorado priced at +775. They were two of the top three teams in the futures odds before last season, but the third team this year is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Last season, the Vegas Golden Knights rounded out the top three but this year the Leafs are installed as a +900 choice to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup since 1967. The Golden Knights are one of three teams priced at +1400 along with the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Rangers.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Arizona Coyotes are a +25000 longshot to win the Stanley Cup. Last season, the Coyotes were at +7500 but due to the franchise struggling on the ice and facing uncertainty off the ice their chances have plummeted. There’s six teams priced at +10000–the Buffalo Sabres, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, New Jersey Devils and Seattle Kraken. Last year, the Sabres, Jackets, Wings, Devils and Kraken were also priced at +10000. The Blackhawks were +5000 before last season, and the other +10000 team last year has shown marginal improvement–that’s the Anaheim Ducks who are at +8000 in the new futures odds.
We’ve already talked about two teams that saw their odds head the most in the wrong direction. Arizona went from +7500 to +25000 and the Chicago Blackhawks went from +5000 to +10000. You can also add the Montreal Canadiens to that list. They entered the 2021-2022 season as the Stanley Cup runners up priced at a reasonable +2000. In the newly released 2022-2023 NHL futures odds, the Habs have dropped to +6600.
Heading in the opposite direction are the Calgary Flames and the Los Angeles Kings. The Flames were +5000 prior to last season and +1800 in the newly released numbers. The Kings were +7000 last season and are a hopeful +3500 to win another Stanley Cup. Some teams’ prices are slightly inexplicable. The Carolina Hurricanes lost a hard fought Eastern Conference semifinal series to the New York Rangers, and have dropped from +1100 to +1400. The Maple Leafs, meanwhile, lost in the first round but have moved from +1400 to a +900 third choice. Obviously, it wasn’t a ‘garden variety’ opening round series as Toronto went toe to toe with the Tampa Bay Lightning before losing in seven games. The Edmonton Oilers’ odds showed only slight improvement from +2500 to +2000 despite reaching the Western Conference Finals after not reaching the playoffs last year. They were bludgeoned in the conference finals by the eventual Cup champion Avalanche, but that’s hardly anything to be ashamed of. No other team (including Tampa in the finals) won more than two games from Colorado during this playoff run.
Other teams have the exact same price they did before last year. The Nashville Predators were significantly improved in the regular season, but were swept by Colorado in the first round of the playoffs. Their price is the same as last year (+5000). The Vancouver Canucks also looked to be improved over the previous year but they were +5000 before last season and +5000 currently. Both Nashville and Vancouver are improving teams, but since both play in the downright brutal Western Conference you can make a case that their odds to win a Stanley Cup haven’t improved. In all fairness, it’s difficult to make accurate comparisons between the recently completed 82 game season and the 2020-2021 56 game season with a format dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2022-2023 NHL STANLEY CUP CHAMPION
Colorado Avalanche +400 Tampa Bay Lightning +700 Toronto Maple Leafs +900 Florida Panthers +1000 Carolina Hurricanes +1400 New York Rangers +1400 Vegas Golden Knights +1400 Boston Bruins +1800 Calgary Flames +1800 Edmonton Oilers +2000 Minnesota Wild +2000 St. Louis Blues +2000 Pittsburgh Penguins +2000 Dallas Stars +3500 Los Angeles Kings +3500 New York Islanders +3500 Washington Capitals +3500 Winnipeg Jets +4000 Nashville Predators +5000 Vancouver Canucks +5000 Montreal Canadiens +6600 Ottawa Senators +6600 Philadelphia Flyers +7500 Anaheim Ducks +8000 San Jose Sharks +8000 Buffalo Sabres +10000 Chicago Blackhawks +10000 Columbus Blue Jackets +10000 Detroit Red Wings +10000 New Jersey Devils +10000 Seattle Kraken +10000 Arizona Coyotes +25000
