Our Top Picks to Make the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs

With just over three weeks to go until the 2021-22 Stanley Cup starts, it only feels like last week that we were watching the Lightning host the trophy aloft for the second year running. Here are our best value sports betting picks and best bets ahead of this year's competition.

Standout NHL 2022 Odds

It's going to be an amazing NHL season to look forward to, we have so many redemption story’s, the thrills and spills of the regular season will most definitely spring a few surprises and there will always be one or two teams punching well above their weight and one or two better teams who will fail to meet their season objectives.

Only two teams who made the semi-finals last season are in the top five of the betting markets. First up is reigning champions Tampa Bay Lightning coming in at +600 to lift the trophy and Las Vegas Golden Knights have been priced up at +700. Another interesting quotation is the Toronto Maple Leafs, which are priced up at just +1000, for USthis is much too low and we would want a minimum of +1500 to even consider betting the team based in Toronto.

https://twitter.com/FlaPanthers/status/1442558334704537600?s=20

A team that caught our eye is the Florida Panthers at +1800, they would have went far last season only they bumped into the eventual winners in the first round of the playoffs. We predicted the Dallas Stars to fail to make it past the first round of the playoffs last season and our predictions were correct as they never even made it into the knockout phase of the competition, but this season at odds of +3500 we think they are worth a look.

As for the massive outsider teams, the only two who we would even consider betting on is the Nashville Predators at +10000 and the Chicago Blackhawks +4500, both teams have the best potential from all the bigger odds teams. So let’s discuss some of the teams worth betting to host the Stanley Cup in 2022.

Stanley Cup Outsider Picks

New York Islanders

The Islanders have one of the best post-season squads and coaches, the grit and determination, and of course tactics all play into this one big idea that makes the team pretty hard to beat, focusing firstly on defense and secondly on their goalscoring. The Islanders would have no problems going to overtime of penalties each and every game, it’s their style and works out quite well for them in the playoffs and of course, at +1800 we believe they are worth futures bet to host the Stanley. The Islanders have made it to the Finals and semi-finals in each of the past two seasons and we see them going deep again this year.

Dallas Stars

The Dallas Stars suffered from some injury issues last season, but if they can keep their team fully fit this year they could go deep, much like the Islanders they don’t mind the nitty-gritty games and favor defense over offense more often than not. If they can keep everyone fit and goaltender Anton Khudobin can be at his best, we could then see something similar to the Dallas Stars team that made the 202 Stanley Cup finals.

https://twitter.com/NYIslanders/status/1442953571968843782?s=20

Colorado Avalanche Could Come of Age

Many pundits and NHL sports betters have different lean, angles, and alliances to different teams, and we have seen many of them say that the +1800 Florida Panthers could be the best in the NHL futures market. We do like them a lot but we think the Colorado Avalanche might finally come of age and after the few pieces of deadwood and new signings brought in, they might be able to click and bring it all together. The Avs have a high octane offense that focuses on the league’s 2nd best player (In our opinion) in the form of Nathan MacKinnon.

Colorado was knocked out in the 2nd round of the playoffs to the Vegas Knights last season as they lacked that killer instinct to advance by a Vegas team who we would argue was there for the taking for the Avalanche. They were the trendy pick in 2021 and they might have handed that status over to the Panthers this year, hopefully meaning less stress in the media world and more success on the ice. The Avalanche are favorites with many sportsbooks but there’s a reason for this, they are so dangerous they are one of the only team who has a chance of going far with just mediocre goaltending, if their goaltender is on fire then they will be very hard to beat.