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Maple Leafs among betting favourites to win Stanley Cup

Kyle Cantlon
·Writer
Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen (31) celebrates with John Tavares (91) and Auston Matthews (34) after defeating the New York Rangers NHL hockey action in Toronto on Saturday, December 22, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
The Atlantic Division is looking loaded once again in 2019-20. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn)

Future odds for the Stanley Cup and conference champions are starting to trickle out from Vegas, and one division is looking particularly stacked heading into NHL betting szn.

The top four teams expected to take the East all come from the Atlantic, with the Lightning, Bruins, Leafs and Panthers favoured to win the conference ahead of any Metro-based clubs, according to both BetOnline.ag.

OddsShark has similar opening NHL futures odds at the top of the conference, but with the Capitals and Penguins ranked ahead of the Panthers in the Eastern landscape. The one pre-season consensus every sports book seems to have entering the season is that once again the top three teams in the East, according to the posted betting odds, are the Lightning, Bruins and Maple Leafs.

In the much tighter Western Conference, eight teams have 9/1 odds or better to win the conference, according to BetOnline.ag — a group that includes Vegas (11/2), Colorado (13/2), St. Louis and Winnipeg (7/1), Calgary, Dallas, Nashville and San Jose (all 9/1). OddsShark has the the same group of eight teams in a very similar order listed at the top of the West as well.

Top 5 Stanley Cup contenders, according to OddsShark:

We’ll revisit this a little bit later in the summer, but if you’re hunting for strictly value on the conference side of things, take a long hard look at the Canadiens and Sabres in the East and the Blackhawks and Coyotes in the West.

From a Stanley Cup standpoint, it’s hard to go wrong with the defending-champion Blues at +1500.

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