Stanley Cup Betting Sites | Latest Stanley Cup Odds
This Stanley Cup betting guide provides tips and strategies to help you wager on the Stanley Cup Finals, which mark the culmination of the NHL betting season.
Best Stanley Cup Betting Sites
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Who is Favored to Win Stanley Cup?
Compare odds across online sportsbooks below:
How do Stanley Cup Playoffs Work?
After an 82-game regular season, a Stanley Cup finalist will have played three best-of-seven series to reach the Final.
Playoff series are structured in a 2-2-1-1-1 format, meaning the team with the best regular season record is afforded four home games if the series goes to seven. That team with the best record host the first two games, then the other team for two, with single-game stands staged for the next three games of the series, if needed.
This format allows each team to host at least two games.
That’s at least 12 games (in the case of a sweep) and up to 21 in a compressed amount of time.
That’s physically and emotionally grueling. Injuries, therefore, are a massive consideration, as is fatigue, in assessing which players and therefore which teams can win.
How to Read Stanley Cup Odds & Betting Lines
Moneylines are based on positive and negative figures and indicate how much money a bettor must wager to win $100, or how much a $100 bet would win. Negative numbers indicate how much bettors must play to win $100.
Let's look at a few examples:
- If the moneyline is -140, a $140 bet is required to win $100. Positive numbers indicate the winnings from a $100 bet.
- If the moneyline is +160, a successful $100 bet would yield $160. Calculate winnings on different bet amounts by scaling the figure up or down proportionally, remaining cognizant of whether the number is positive or negative. Puck lines are a means of augmenting a moneyline bet and are similar to point spreads. In this system, though, the favorite must win by 1.5 goals, or the underdog must keep the score within that same range.
- If the moneyline is -140, a +1.5 puck line bet requires them to win by at least two (the decimal assures no ties). If the Western Conference champion is the underdog at +160, a -1.5 puck line bet requires the Maple Leafs to keep the score within that amount of goals of the Eastern champs.
Live Betting on the Stanley Cup
NHL games are played over three 20-minute periods, so betting within those parameters can be an entertaining way to bet, reassess, and try another strategy. It is, therefore, beneficial to know whether a team excels in a particular period in terms of scoring or has a good record when leading or trailing after a specific point in the game.
Goalies will have much to do with this analysis.
Any team would prefer to score early and often and clamp down for the rest of the game, but few can. Study their trends. Numbers will present a picture of mindset and patterns.
Types of Stanley Cup Finals Bets
Popular NHL betting markets feature numerous ways to wager on the final, including team and individual bets that allow bettors expanded opportunities to exploit their handicapping prowess. Stanley Cup betting is unique because you can bet on individual games and the entire series.
Betting total goals involves venturing on how many goals will be scored in a single game by both teams combined. If the Over/Under for a Stanley Cup Finals game is at 6.0, the bet would be whether the teams reach that figure combined.
Futures bets involve season-long goals for both teams and players. They can be bets on whether a team will win the Stanley Cup, the Eastern or Western Conference Championship, its division title, or enough games to simply make the playoffs.
Stanley Cup Betting Tips & Strategies
Analyze Historical Trends & Context
Past truisms have been challenged in recent Stanley Cup Playoffs. The postseason is such a trial that even teams that end the season as the odds-on favorites have lost early and often in recent years.
- Don't overvalue home-ice advantage: While home-ice advantage was once a prime determiner of success, road teams have begun to negate those norms. The 2018 Stanley Cup champion Capitals lost the first two games of their first-round series against Columbus at home and won the next four games to advance.
- Newer or less-experienced playoff teams are not automatic fades: While teams that had played together for seasons were supposed to possess the proper resolve for a postseason grind, the Vegas Golden Knights became the first expansion team to advance to the Cup final in 2018, falling to the Caps in six games.
- Underdogs can thrive: There have been 28 teams that have come back from 3-1 or 3-0 deficits to win series, with 26 of those comebacks occurring since 1987 and seven since 2010.
- Be wary of favorites: The team with the most points in both conferences wins the Presidents' Trophy and is viewed as the "champion" in the sense of the regular season. But since the 2002-2003 season, only two Presidents' Trophy winners have gone on to win the Stanley Cup. Even being the best team in the league statistically does not carry a distinct advantage in the NHL.
Evaluate Team Chemistry & Coaching Tactics
Lines can change anytime, depending on the matchup, health, or performance.
- Track line pairings and adjustments: Coaches often shift them throughout playoffs to maximize their lineups and capitalize on mismatches. Familiarity among linemates brings crucial chemistry throughout the season, as a line's chemistry can make all the difference in a team's season.
- Top scorers always play together: Since playing an entire 60 minutes is impossible, there are no guarantees that the top scorers on a team will all be on the same line. A coach may split up his most gifted players to make his team deeper.
- Note defensive or checking lines: There are often four different offensive lines and three defensive pairings. Some lines, known as checking lines, are defensive-based and meant to slow down a particularly deadly line.
Emphasize Special Teams
One unique statistical category in hockey that often provides distinct advantages is teams' power plays and penalty kill percentages. When a player commits a rules infraction during a game, he is sent to the penalty box for two or five minutes, depending on the severity of the infraction.
This results in a 5-on-4 advantage for the other team, known as a power play, while the other team's shorthanded "penalty kill" unit attempts to defensively thwart the opponent.
Mastery in either field plays a big factor in a game's ebb and flow. Scoring on a power play or completing a successful kill are often key momentum-shifting moments.
Expect the Unexpected
Stanley Cup betting is often trickier than regular season betting because players who were pedestrian in the regular season are often elevated into statistical anomalies and folk heroes with postseason adventures.
For example, Washington Capitals right wing Devante Smith-Pelly, a career journeyman, needed 75 games to net seven goals in the 2017-2018 regular season but just seven games to reach the same mark—two of them game-winners—in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Hope is not a plan, and momentum and positive energy don’t seem like sound metrics when analyzing a matchup, but they are all part of the Stanley Cup.
More Stanley Cup Betting Strategies from Gambling.com
Recent Stanley Cup Winners
| Year | Winner | Runner-Up | Series Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Florida Panthers | Edmonton Oilers | 4-3 |
| 2023 | Vegas Golden Knights | Florida Panthers | 4-1 |
| 2022 | Colorado Avalanche | Tampa Bay Lightning | 4-2 |
| 2021 | Tampa Bay Lightning | Montreal Canadiens | 4-1 |
| 2020 | Tampa Bay Lightning | Dallas Stars | 4-2 |
| 2019 | St. Louis Blues | Boston Bruins | 4-3 |
| 2018 | Washington Capitals | Vegas Golden Knights | 4-1 |
| 2017 | Pittsburgh Penguins | Nashville Predators | 4-2 |
| 2016 | Pittsburgh Penguins | San Jose Sharks | 4-2 |
| 2015 | Chicago Blackhawks | Tampa Bay Lightning | 4-2 |
| 2014 | Los Angeles Kings | New York Rangers | 4-1 |
| 2013 | Chicago Blackhawks | Boston Bruins | 4-2 |
| 2012 | Los Angeles Kings | New Jersey Devils | 4-2 |
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