2022 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs: Breaking Down the Betting Odds for the Cup
We've reached the point in the 2021-22 NHL season when some teams are starting to be mathematically eliminated from Stanley Cup playoff contention, while others on the other end of the standings are close to locking up their invites.
In the Eastern Conference, three teams have been knocked out of the playoff race by means of math. The New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal Canadiens all struggled for a variety of reasons, and they'll need to pick themselves up off the mat and figure out new ways to approach the 2022-23 campaign.
If you're looking for next year's version of the Los Angeles Kings—a rebuilder that suddenly turns a corner—look no further than New Jersey. If the Devils can figure out their goaltending situation, they could surprise some people next year.
Out in the Western Conference, two squads have been knocked out of the playoff race in the Seattle Kraken and Arizona Coyotes. There's no real reason to believe either of these two teams will be anywhere besides this same spot a year from now.
Here we are going to examine the organizations that won't require divine intervention to make the playoffs, based on DraftKings.com's most recent odds, which were released on March 30. That means that the seven teams that are sitting at +10000 odds aren't going to get any time in the spotlight here. Maybe next year, boys.
Cinderella Run Required: Islanders, Jets, Canucks, Kings and Predators
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There are essentially two tiers tucked inside this one: Squads that would need a Cinderella run just to make it to the playoffs, and then the groups that will likely get there but require small miracles to win more than a game or two.
There don't seem to be any can't-miss, smart-money moves available here. If you've got a gut feeling about the Nashville Predators because of their high-end core, maybe take a shot on them. The rest of these teams are very much long shots in every sense of the word.
New York Islanders (+25000)
You won't hear the New York Islanders making excuses for themselves, but this team has been on the outside of the track for a playoff spot since the schedules were released. They opened the season with a historically long road trip and never seemed to recover.
After extending Zach Parise and Cal Clutterbuck, the Isles will run it back next year and see if the cookie crumbles a bit differently.
Winnipeg Jets (+20000)
The Winnipeg Jets could still technically sneak into the playoffs, but they'd need a lot of help. They have less than a 4 percent chance entering play April 2, and even if Winnipeg did make the cutoff, there's really no reason to believe they'd be anything more than first-round fodder.
It'll be an interesting offseason in Winnipeg, where the team stands at a bit of a crossroads with their current roster.
Vancouver Canucks (+10000)
Watching the Vancouver Canucks turn their campaign around under head coach Bruce Boudreau has been a blast. Sadly for fans in Vancouver, the playoff push will likely come up a bit short. The veteran bench isn't ready to quit just yet. The 2.2 percent chance of making the postseason suggests that the time is coming soon, though.
This will be a team to watch in 2022-23, especially if Boudreau returns and can spin his magical yarn to tie this team into a playoff contender.
Los Angeles Kings (+6000)
With the L.A. Kings, we shift from the teams that are highly unlikely to make the playoffs to one that ought to be there. Los Angeles isn't a lock just yet, but they have an 88.2 percent chance of earning its first postseason appearance since 2018.
The improbability of the Kings making it to this point is matched by the improbability of them doing any damage when the tournament itself rolls around. They are young and promising with one of the best prospect pipelines in the NHL. This group just isn't quite there yet, though.
Nashville Predators (+4500)
The Predators were supposed to be in a state of reloading in 2021-22. Few pundits believed that this roster would be capable of making a push in the Western Conference. However, that was before Matt Duchene rediscovered his scoring touch, Roman Josi morphed into a point-producing machine and Filip Forsberg posted one of his best seasons yet.
If you're looking for a first-round sleeper, you've found one in Nashville. Goaltender Juuse Saros has been stealing games all season long, as evidenced by his 18.8 goals saved above expected. That's good for sixth among netminders with more than 20 starts, giving the Predators a chance to sneak into the second round.
Playoff Teams with Concerns: Stars, Blues, Capitals, Oilers, Golden Knights
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There's a lot of talent in this group, but each team has at least one weakness that could hold them back from making it through more than one round.
That isn't to say that it's impossible. Goalies go on tears all the time. Sometimes third-line forwards morph into Mario Lemieux for a month and make a big difference.
Those are tough things to project and bet on, however.
One of these things is not like the others, though, and that's the Vegas Golden Knights. No one wants to see a healthy version of this team come playoff time. They're rapidly running out of time to actually make the cutoff, though.
If they manage to do so and if they get key players back in the lineup, the sky is the limit. That's been the case all season, though, and we haven't seen that happen yet.
Dallas Stars (+4000)
Giving the Dallas Stars slightly better Stanley Cup winner's odds than the Predators seems like an interesting choice by our friends over at DraftKings. The gap is only +500, but if we could swap Nashville and Dallas, we would.
The Stars are a one-line team with one outstanding defenseman and so-so goaltending. Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski dominate when they're out on the ice. Otherwise, Dallas just gets too badly out-chanced to be considered a first-round threat, at least when it comes to your money.
St. Louis Blues (+3000)
Here's a team that always seems to get slept on but always seems poised to surprise folks once the playoffs roll around. Maybe that's still the smell of the 2019 squad that hasn't quite blown off yet, but there's enough skill in place here to make St. Louis a tough out in the first round.
The Minnesota Wild wouldn't exactly be a welcome face, though, and the Blues will be hard-pressed to repeat the magic of their 2019 run. They are deep enough at forward to get through the regular season, but in the playoffs, where things tighten up dramatically, it becomes much more difficult to outscore your problems, as we'll see with the next two teams.
Washington Capitals (+3000)
The days of Alex Ovechkin being able to win a round or two by himself have come and gone. The Eastern Conference is simply too loaded for the Great Eight to be able to carry the Washington Capitals to a first-round playoff victory.
Odds are good that the Capitals will end up facing either the Florida Panthers or Tampa Bay Lightning in the opening series—a series they'd have virtually no chance of winning, even if Vitek Vanecek stands on his head the entire time. Washington just doesn't have the depth needed to hang with either Florida squad.
Edmonton Oilers (+2500)
If you believe that depth at center wins championships, then, by all means, pop a few bucks on the Edmonton Oilers. They have to win with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at some point, right?
If you believe that netminding wins championships, though, maybe shy away from Edmonton. Mikko Koskinen hasn't been consistent enough for the Oilers to be a legit threat—at least for more than one round. Once they start running into the upper echelon of the teams in the West, this just doesn't look like a team that can overcome their glaring issues in goal and on the blue line.
This is a team that recently lost 9-5 to the Calgary Flames, after all. Doesn't exactly scream, "fear me in the postseason."
Vegas Golden Knights (+2000)
The Golden Knights essentially need to win a coin flip to make the playoffs this year but are still sitting at +2000 odds. That speaks volumes about how talented and stacked this team could be if they manage to get all of their key players back in time for the postseason (and assuming they do what needs to be done in the regular season to get there).
DraftKings is making sure it doesn't get burned by this team miraculously getting healthy and good just in time for the playoffs, but this is still a fun little sleeper bet that could hit big if you're looking to make one or two of those.
They Might Be Giants: Rangers, Penguins, Wild, Bruins, Maple Leafs
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Now we get to the first tier of real contenders. None of these teams are perfect, but they don't have the same kinds of holes as the last group. Any one of these squads could go on a run, and it wouldn't be overly surprising.
One could argue that the New York Rangers should be included in the previous level, but pundits have been waiting for the bottom to drop out on the Blueshirts all season long, and it hasn't happened yet. And it usually isn't wise to bet against the best goaltender in the sport.
New York Rangers (+1800)
General manager Chris Drury didn't land a big fish at the trade deadline, but the work he did was still noteworthy. The Rangers are now deeper than they have been all year, and Igor Shesterkin is running away with the Vezina Trophy.
Andrew Copp might be one of the best pickups on trade deadline day, and the Rangers' play as of late has them looking like one of the four or five best teams in the NHL. It's almost certain that they'll lock horns with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round, and that series has the makings of a first-round classic.
Speaking of which...
Pittsburgh Penguins (+1600)
There aren't a lot of laws when it comes to betting in the NHL. One of them is that it's never smart to put your money up against Sidney Crosby. The Pittsburgh Penguins obviously haven't won every Stanley Cup since he broke into the league, but he's broken plenty of hearts—and wallets—along the way.
Shesterkin has the goods needed to beat Pittsburgh, but the Penguins are a deeper and more veteran team than New York. The East is a gauntlet, and this opening-round matchup is proof of that.
Interestingly enough, MoneyPuck gives Pittsburgh the highest chance out of all playoff-bound teams to make it out of the first round. Just some food for thought as you place your bets.
Minnesota Wild (+1600)
It could be argued that no team in the NHL improved their Stanley Cup chances at the deadline more than the Minnesota Wild. They got tougher, meaner and added perhaps the single biggest needle-mover available in Marc-Andre Fleury.
If the Flower settles in—or Cam Talbot continues to play at a high level—then Minnesota won't be an easy out in the Western Conference. They have players that are a pain to play against throughout the lineup and a true No. 1 forward in Kirill Kaprizov.
The West is pretty wide-open after the suddenly banged-up Colorado Avalanche, so the Wild are a team to keep an eye on, especially early in the playoffs.
Boston Bruins (+1400)
The Boston Bruins will have their hands full in the first round, no matter who they draw. A series against the Toronto Maple Leafs would be, uh, intense, while a matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes would be far from desirable.
If the former happens, Boston could manage to come out on top but would be slight underdogs. Carolina represents a different challenge, as the Hurricanes have had the Bruins' number all season. The two teams have met three times, and the 'Canes have outscored the B's by a combined score of 16-1 in those three outings.
They say the regular season doesn't matter come playoff time. It certainly does when you get trounced that badly on three different nights, however.
Toronto Maple Leafs (+1200)
Is this "the year" for the Toronto Maple Leafs?
DraftKings isn't quite convinced given these odds, and the fact that Petr Mrazek will miss upward of six weeks with his latest injury essentially locks Jack Campbell in as the de facto starter. Is the latter capable of stepping up and pushing Toronto through a difficult road in the Eastern Conference?
The pressure is tremendous. We know the Maple Leafs have a forward group capable of posting plenty of goals—their 3.73 goals scored per game ranks third in the league—but goaltending will be key to any chance they have at taking a run.
And it's tough to bank on inconsistent goaltending.
Creme De La Creme: Hurricanes, Lightning, Flames, Panthers, Avs
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If you've been paying attention to the NHL since the start of 2022, none of these teams should surprise you. Going back to preseason predictions, only the Calgary Flames have really been a surprise, but even then, they were expected to be a solid, well-coached team.
It's worth noting that three of these teams are from the Eastern Conference, while only two are from the West in the Flames and Avalanche. As we've been writing all along, the former conference is nightmarish for any contenders, while the latter is a bit more, well, wild.
Carolina Hurricanes (+1000)
The only real concern about the Carolina Hurricanes, at least when compared to this group, is whether or not they have the high-end firepower that it usually takes to hoist the Stanley Cup at the end of the playoffs. There's no doubt that they have some fantastic pieces in place, but they seem to fall a bit short compared to the likes of the Panthers or Lightning.
That won't preclude them from surprising some people and going the distance, as evidenced by DraftKings' placement of them as a top-five threat. Still, they're the underdogs of the outstanding top tier that has developed in the East.
They are good, but do they have what it takes to be great come playoff time? If you think they do, you could make worse bets with your hard-earned cash.
Tampa Bay Lightning (+900)
Here we have the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion trying to secure their status as a dynasty via a three-peat. We aren't in the business of reading minds here at B/R, but betting against that kind of clear motivation would be tough.
The Tampa Bay Lightning don't have the most outstanding record in the NHL, and they looked shaky a few weeks ago, causing fans to overreact and panic. There's no need for worry for fans of the Lightning, though. By now, this group knows that the Stanley Cup isn't awarded during the regular season, and this might be the most feared foe in the Eastern Conference despite their record being a bit less stellar than other teams.
Calgary Flames (+900)
The betting world seems to have caught onto the fact that the Calgary Flames are built for postseason hockey. This is a squad that can roll four lines with the best of them, and they have pieced together some of the most dominant puck-possession units in all of the NHL.
All-world goaltending from Jacob Markstrom and the kind of play that translates to the postseason cleanly—read: they won't have to outscore their roster issues—has Calgary sitting as one of the teams to beat in the West.
Their record lags far behind Colorado's, but stranger things have happened than a team like Calgary going out and upsetting a favorite or two.
Florida Panthers (+550)
If it weren't for a historically stacked team in Colorado, the Panthers would be at the top of the pecking order entering the postseason. With the Lightning sitting as defending champions, though, and the Avalanche being as deep as they are, Florida doesn't quite have that distinction.
Distinctions don't win championships, though, and this Panthers team is all-in after an aggressive deadline that saw them bring in Ben Chiarot and Claude Giroux. This will be a remarkably tough team to match up with, and if Aaron Ekblad can return from injury sooner rather than later, it'll be even more difficult.
Colorado Avalanche (+350)
The Colorado Avalanche are the closest thing to easy money on DraftKings' odds table. You'd have to pony up a tidy sum to reap any noteworthy rewards, but this season, the Stanley Cup seems like theirs to lose. They've battled through damage all year long and are still the best team in hockey.
It sounds like they dodged a real bullet with Nathan MacKinnon's injury, and as long as the Avalanche don't randomly start sleepwalking, they'll be nearly impossible to knock off in a seven-game series. They play the games for a reason, of course, but Colorado is sitting in this spot for a reason.
They are very, very good.
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