The age of the sports dynasty has gone the way of helmet-less defensemen. No more Green Bay Packers or Boston Celtics or New York Yankees teams that put together a decade of world championships. But the National Hockey League still produces pretenders to the Gretzky-led Oilers or the great Canadiens teams of yore. Last year the “D” word was being tossed at the Los Angeles Kings who tripped up mightily along the way last season and did not even qualify for the playoffs. Los Angeles is still loaded with top-notch hockey players and are a force to be reckoned with in the Pacific Division – and Top Bet gives the Kings an outside chance of regaining Lord Stanley’s Cup at +1000 – but they are already yesterday’s news in talk of a dynasty.
【2015-16 NHL Stanley Cup Winner Odds】
※ Current Odds Date & Time: October 6, 5:00 a.m. (GMT)
No team in the 2000s has won back-to-back NHL championships but the Chicago Blackhawks are skating into the 2015-16 with the strongest bid to do so in years. The sublime Duncan Keith is the centerpiece of the Hawks but he is surrounded by a deep and talented cast led by Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.
Head coach Joel Quenneville has already collected three Stanley Cups behind the Blackhawk bench and Top Bet has installed Chicago as a +700 favorite to make it number four. Beyond recent history, punters searching for reasons why the Blackhawks will not repeat this season can point to a core of players on the wrong side of 30 years old and the heavy playoff load the team has burdened in recent playoffs – 65 playoff games, almost a full extra season of skating – in the past three years. But Coach Q has mastered the strategy of pacing an NHL team through an arduous season – Chicago only finished seventh in overall regular season points before dominating the playoffs last season.
Perhaps due to Chicago’s lackluster pursuit of the Presidents’ Trophy for most points by a team the oddsmakers have made several squads better bets to win their division than the Blackhawks. The shortest odds (+150) belong to the Anaheim Ducks to once again reign in the Pacific Division. Anaheim has committed to winning the Cup this season after a busy off-season following a disappointing exit from the conference finals last year at the hands of the Blackhawks.
【2015-16 NHL Division Winner Odds】
※ Current Odds Date & Time: October 6, 5:00 a.m. (GMT)
Many of the sharps were touting the Tampa Bay Lightning as last year’s sleeper and almost cashed their tickets before the Lightning flamed out in the Cup finals. Tampa Bay may have arrived a year early in 2015 but they are not sneaking up on anyone this year. This is the team to beat in the East and also the franchise in the best position to carve out a case for the “next dynasty.”
The Lightning are full of momentum, most of the 2015 team is back on the ice and the oddsmakers have made them favorites in the Atlantic Division (+180) and the Eastern Conference (+400). Perhaps the only obstacle in Tampa Bay’s march to the NHL title is history. Since the expansion era in hockey began in 1967 only one Stanley Cup runner-up has returned the following season to win the Cup.
The prime challenge to the Lightning in the East is likely to come from the New York Rangers, who fell victim to the “Cup runner-up curse” last season despite leading all teams with 113 regular season points. The Broadway Blueshirts are a veteran team, which bettors can interpret as “experienced” or “old.” At +1000 to win the Cup, oddsmakers feel the Rangers could go either way in 2015-16 as well.
Also hovering at +1000 among the Cup contenders is the fabled franchise of the Montreal Canadiens. Playing in front of 29-year old goaltending wizard Carey Price, the Habs were often the best team in the NHL in 2015. Price carted home the Ted Lindsay, Jennings, Vezina and Hart trophies last year to become the first backstop in NHL history to claim all four individual awards. But you can win only so many 1-0 games in the NHL – the Canadiens have not had an offensive player average a point a game in this decade.
If it is action on the ice that bettors crave to match their action at the betting windows there is no better team to back than the Pittsburgh Penguins at +1000. The Pens barely snuck into the playoffs last year and were excused in the first round but rather than shore up questionable defense the front office went out and brought in even more offensive firepower by acquiring Toronto center Phil Kessel. With Kessel, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Kalkin and Kris Letang flying around the ice, Pittsburgh will certainly provide a maximum return for the entertainment dollar in 2015-16.
Speaking of Crosby, the NHL has not had an “instant franchise” player enter the league since he arrived on the scene more than a decade ago. One is being touted this year to join the ranks of Wayne Gretzky-Eric Lindros-Mario Lemieux. Connor McDavid is just 18 years old but already the center has been the Most Valuable Player in the Ontario Hockey League and the leading scorer on the International Canadian Under-18 team. McDavid was snatched number one in the 2015 draft by the Edmonton Oilers and he is expected to star immediately upon his NHL debut. That stardom is unlikely to translate into big returns for bettors in 2015-16 but if McDavid is able to lead the Oilers to the Stanley Cup it will be a handsome return for long shot players at +4000.
