NHL Update: Odds to Win Conferences & Stanley Cup

There's a lot of surprises.

The NHL 2024/25 season is approaching the equator, and it’s already possible to define the teams that perform surprisingly well and those that don’t meet the expectations. Let us take a closer look at Eastern and Western conferences and shortly analyze the top 3 of each of them.

Eastern Conference: The Capitals is a surprise number one of the season

Eastern Conference top-5

Bookmakers consider the Panthers to be the favorites of the East alongside the Hurricanes and the Devils. The latter are doing well and demonstrating their willingness to make up for last season's failure. Back in 2023/24, the Devils finished just 13th and didn’t qualify for the playoffs.

Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes are attacking leaders of the Devils. Jasper Bratt has 46 points after 43 games played and Jack Hughes has 48 points in 43 games. Both contribute approximately equally in terms of goals and assists: 15+33 for Hughes and 14+34 for Bratt. Nico Hischier is also decent with his 19+17.

NJ Devils to win the Eastern Conference

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19/4

Though the NJ Devils are doing better than expected, the biggest surprise of the NHL 2024/25 season is the Washington Capitals. Bookmakers were giving somewhere around 60.00 for their chances of winning the Stanley Cup. Now it’s just 17.00. Why so? It’s simple: all the predictions that the Capitals will focus entirely on Alex Ovechkin’s beating Wayne Gretzky’s goal record. Of course, the team indeed tries to help the 39-years old legend to beat it, but even without injured Alexander, the Capitals looked fantastic. Connor McMichael (17+14), Aliaksei Protas (18+17), and Tom Wilson (18+14) were in charge of scoring goals in Alex’s absence. Dylan Strome (12+33) is the best assistant and leader of the team. The Capitals already perform much better than expected, and they are unlikely to struggle with qualifying for the playoffs. But if they keep up the shape they have, they are likely to win the conference.

Washington Capitals to win the Eastern Conference

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7/1

Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers have almost identical chances to win the Conference. Hurricanes had a decent start, but now it seems that the coach Rod Brind'Amour struggles to find the formula of constant winning. Previously Martin Necas (14+30) had more freedom on the ice, but now he has become a part of strict Brind’Amour’s tactics. If the Hurricanes fail to get to their previous version, they will face a lot of defeats like it was in the games against the Capitals (1:3) or the Predators (2:5).

Eastern Conference top-5 favorites

Western Conference: The Jets in a tough battle with the Knights and the Wild

Before the start of the season, the Jets weren’t even in the top 10 of Stanley Cup contenders among the bookmakers. However, though their decent performance is not as surprising as the Capitals’ in Ovechkin’s absence, Winnipeg is top-notch so far.  The Jets struggled for some time but managed to get back to good conditions before the break and defeated the Canadiens (4:2), the Sharks (4:3), the Wild (5:0), and the Maple Leafs (5:2). The Jets managed to beat the Maple Leafs for the first time in three years.

Winnipeg Jets to win the Western Conference

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7/1

What could stand in the Jets’ way? The Golden Knight’s stability. So far, they haven’t had any period of serious setbacks. The chances of them having it are also slim as the Golden Knights deliver as a team, not by a single personality. Yes, Jack Eichel is the best in overall statistics so far (53, 11+42), but in terms of scoring goals Barbashev (15), Howden (15), Dorofeyev (14), and Hertl (11) are as good as Jack.

Vegas Golden Knights to win the Western Conference

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8/1

It seems that Bruce Cassidy's team makes certain conclusions that make the team stronger after each defeat. Thus, after being defeated by the Oilers (3:6), the Golden Knights improved their interactions in defense and conceded just one goal in the games against the Canucks (3:1) and the Ducks (3:1), with two goals being conceded in the games against the Wild (3:2) and the Kraken (6:2). Such performance could lead The Golden Knights to the victory in the Western Conference.

Western Conference top-5 favorites

All of this is just preliminary predictions, and the NHL will probably bring a lot of surprises in the second part of its season, just like it did in the first one.