I’m struggling to find things to write about with the NHL lockout in full swing and nothing really happening in the negotiations. That said today I was looking at my early NHL Stanley Cup Predictions article I wrote back on the 17th of July and noticed that many of the odds for teams winning the Cup have changed in just over 2 months. I figured I would investigate the changes from that article to what the odds are now. I will use the best odds available online. In the last article I used only SportsInteraction.com and Bovada.lv odds, but seeing as SportsInteraction.com is currently not taking NHL Stanley Cup bets I don’t think only using Bovada odds is the best option.
New York Rangers +1000 from +1400
The Rangers line shortened significantly in the past month and they are now considered the second favorites to win the Stanley Cup after only the Pittsburgh Penguins. The biggest reason for this has to be the acquisition of Rick Nash. The Rangers traded Anisimov, Dubinsky, Erixon and a first round pick for Rick Nash about a week after I wrote the first article. I personally don’t think that the Rangers will be that much better with Nash. He has never had team success in the NHL and it will be interesting to see what type of player he is in New York. I would not bet on the Rangers at +1000.
Nashville Predators +2500 from +1800
A big jump in the price of Predators Stanley Cup odds may be due to the fact that people began to realize how difficult winning a cup without Ryan Suter will be. Sure the team kept Shea Weber, but now they will have only 1 elite d-man and an elite goaltender. This isn’t enough firepower to win the Stanley Cup this season. The Preds will once again be a good team, but they won’t go past the second round.
Carolina Hurricanes +2500 from +2800
The Hurricanes picked up Alex Semin since the last article was written, but this acquisition seems to only have shortened the line slightly. With the Staal brothers together and Semin on board with Ruutu, Jokinen and Skinner still on the team, the Canes have a solid top 6 forwards and could compete this year, although I think they are still a few pieces away from a legit contender.
Minnesota Wild +3300 from +1800
I think this jump is simply from people getting too excited after the Suter and Parise signings. The Wild were automatically seen as a team that could win the Cup, but when the dust settled and you really started analyzing your team you realize that they simply don’t have the depth at any position to really pose a threat in the West.
There were some other teams that moved slightly, but these were the more significant movers in the past two months. Hopefully we have an NHL season soon so we can see the products on the ice rather than just analyzing pieces of paper with hockey players names on them and deciding how good of a team they have.
These odds were from taken Bodog, Bovada or Stan James sportsbooks, 3 of the best NHL sportsbooks online. Cross your fingers for a new CBA soon!
Written by: Niko de Jonge
Tagged with: Betting • NHL • predictions • Stanley Cup