As Colorado Avalanche players, staff and the fan base continue celebrating the team’s impressive Stanley Cup-winning campaign, oddsmakers have begun looking ahead to next season.
The betting market has already updated the futures odds for the 2022-23 NHL season and to little surprise the Avalanche are the odds-on favourites to become the league’s newest back-to-back champs.
Jared Bednar’s club put a halt to the Tampa Bay Lightning’s modern dynasty with a six-game series win to cap off an incredible post-season stretch. The Avalanche required only 20 games to capture the franchise’s third Stanley Cup and first since 2001.
Colorado’s 16-4 record in the playoffs equalled the 2012 Kings, 1997 Red Wings, 1995 Devils and 1993 Canadiens with the best post-season record since the late 1980s. Wayne Gretzky won his fourth and final Stanley Cup with the 1988 Oilers that went a historic 16-2 in the playoffs.
Stick tap to oddsmakers for nailing the Stanley Cup odds accurately ahead of 2021-22. Colorado was the listed favourite with +450 pre-season odds while Tampa Bay had +550 pre-season odds to hoist a third consecutive Cup. Both teams ended up advancing to the Final and the chalk won outright. That's elite bookmaking, especially for a league rife with parity like the NHL.
Can the Avalanche go wire-to-wire as the league’s best team for a second consecutive season?
Here’s an updated look at the 2023 Stanley Cup betting odds.
The great thing about putting a future bet on the Avs was that it cashed (duh!) but the drawback is there is little value associated with betting the chalk. For example, if you bet Colorado as +350 favourites ahead of the opening round of the playoffs in the spring, you cashed that ticket too, albeit at a slightly lower value, yet you didn’t have to sweat out the entire regular season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs (+700) are favoured to emerge from the Eastern Conference ahead of 2021-22 Presidents' Trophy-winning Florida Panthers (+800) and the Lightning (+1000). Toronto fared better than Florida did against Tampa in the playoffs, however, the Maple Leafs have not won a playoff series since 2004 despite recent regular-season success.
Vegas (+1400) has the shortest odds of any non-playoff team from a season ago. Can the young franchise get back to the post-season in their first full season with Jack Eichel on the roster and with new coach Bruce Cassidy behind the bench? How far could the Hurricanes have gone this year had Carolina (+1600) not dealt with so many injuries in the crease?
The New York Rangers (+1800) and Edmonton Oilers (+2000) both have several key pending UFAs to make decisions on and both seemingly boast some decent value in this top tier after promising runs to the conference finals.
How much longer will the windows be open in Pittsburgh (+2200) and Boston (+2500) with those teams' superstars on the back nine of their careers?
Of the all the mid-tier contenders sitting between 20/1 and 50/1 odds, the L.A. Kings (+3500) might have the most promising trajectory. They were above .500 and returned to the playoffs for the first time in four years and pushed Edmonton to seven games in the opening round.
The longshots and expected basement dwellers feature several teams with youthful rosters aiming to turn things around. The Montreal Canadiens (+12500) organization should get a boost once they presumably select Shane Wright first-overall in July’s draft, while there was some evidence teams such as Ottawa (+6600), Detroit (+6600) and Anaheim (+8000) are cultivating winning environments by building around a young core.
Unsurprisingly, oddsmakers are expecting the Coyotes (+30000) to finish at or near the bottom of the standings again next season thanks to a roster struggling to acquire talent and an undesirable arena situation.
(Listed betting odds via Bet365 as of June 28)
