This article is part of our NHL Picks series.
NHL Futures: Team Futures Bets for 2023-24 NHL Season
The NHL season officially drops the puck on its new season on October 10. Tons of juicy storylines to sink our teeth into this year, and the Futures markets are already nice and frothy to get the sweat flowing down our spines. Let's take a walk through each division and the main storylines to watch for the respective clubs, and then gander at best bets for Conference and Cup winners. Time to get frisky, y'all!
Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook. Check out our constantly updated NHL Futures page with the latest odds across the best sports betting sites.
NHL Division Winners
Central Division
This will be one of the more interesting divisions to watch this season. Its two big guns - the Avalanche and Stars - are potential Cup contenders and have the DNA to even win the West. The Wild have made the playoffs three straight seasons. The Jets were a playoff team last year, and the Predators barely missed the cut and have been a regular postseason participant for a long time now.
The Blues may have been the league's biggest disappointment last season as they drastically underperformed in the standings compared to the talent on their roster. The Coyotes started making some noise in the second half and were a tough team to knock off playing at Arizona State's Mullett Arena. Then there's the Blackhawks, who were just god awful; but that got them Connor Bedard, who is basically a hockey god.
The Avs are just 1 year removed from their own Stanley Cup victory though, and I think Nathan MacKinnon is one of the most dominant players to ever lace 'em up. He'll be on a mission this season, and they've got a deep team surrounding him that can compete with any team on any given night. If they stay healthy, I think they have a good shot at bouncing back from a surprising first-round exit at the hands of Seattle last season. Look at the Blackhawks of circa 2010 to 2015. They won it all in 2010, had 2 first-round exits in consecutive seasons after that, then won it again in 2013. Colorado seems to have a bit of that vibe going.
Winner: COL Avalanche +155
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Pacific Division
Speaking of players and teams being on missions, look no further than Edmonton, Alberta. I, along with many, thought that last year was the year that Connor McDavid and the Oilers would break through. The guy put up video game numbers, but so did the rest of his team, especially the other guy with the last name Draisaitl and their top power play unit. They were basically the only team to give Vegas any sort of resistance in the postseason, and the urgency is obvious for this franchise coming into this year's campaign.
Vegas basically returned the same roster that lifted Lord Stanley a few months ago. The most notable departure was OG "misfit" Reilly Smith, but they managed to retain playoff standout Ivan Barbashev who is candidly a younger, better version of Smith anyway. The Knights will be tough as long as they can stay healthy, a privilege they enjoyed through their Cup run. I'm not sleeping on the Kings though. They are way ahead of schedule in their so-called rebuild. They added Pierre-Luc Dubois in the offseason to complete one of if not the deepest centermen groups in the game. If they can get better-than-expected goaltending from what is also one of the cheapest netminder corps in the league, then they'll be a tough out too.
The Kraken shocked the hockey world by not only making the playoffs, but beating the Avalanche in the First Round while they were at it. Can they take another step forward? There are tons of question marks in Calgary too. They were a favorite to win the Division and the West overall this time last year, but the wheels fell off under Darryl Sutter. We'll see how the new regimes in the GM's office and behind the bench pans out.
The Canucks are kinda just happy to be here at this point, and then the Ducks and Sharks will likely be competing for the worst record in the league. I want to take the Knights, but I just can't bet against McDavid and Draisatl.
Winner: EDM Oilers +165
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Atlantic Division
Edmonton isn't the only team with Cup expectations this season. The Maple Leafs might've had the league's most prolific offseason. New GM Brad Treliving started his tenure by bringing in notable names Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi, and John Klingberg among other additions to tie up loose ends left by last year's Second Round disappointment. William Nylander enters the last year of his current contract while Auston Matthews signed a monster deal to become the highest paid player in the game. Perhaps the core of Matthews-Marner-Tavares-Rielly-Nylander has gone through enough adversity to finally get over the hump.
The teams in Florida will want to have something to say about that. The Lightning probably should've beaten the Leafs in the First Round last year, and are still a dangerous team that's got all the pieces to make another Cup run. Perhaps the most important piece though, Andrei Vasilevskiy, will miss the first 1-2 months of the season though, which is a huge hole to fill in net. The Panthers barely snuck into the playoffs last year before making a run to the Cup final. Can they take another step forward in the Matthew Tkachuk era?
The Bruins are coming off the most prolific regular season in league history, but lost captain Patrice Bergeron, along with David Krejci, Taylor Hall, and Dmitry Orlov. No one is expecting them to pack the same punch this year.
The Sabres, believe it or not, are coming into this season as one of the most hyped teams. They've got a young, fast, highly skilled group lead by Tage Thompson, add a playoff berth isn't out of the realm for an ailing Buffalo fan base. The Senators will be even scrappier as they take the next step in their own rebuild too, especially with the acquisition of Vladimir Tarasenko to bolster a forward group that features Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Josh Norris, and Claude Giroux. Heck, even Stevey Y's Red Wings could be in the hunt for a playoff spot come springtime. The only team that leaves a lot to be desired is the Canadiens. As a lifelong Caps fan though who has held on tight through the roller coaster of the Alex Ovechkin era, I see so much of those teams in this Toronto group. The Caps won division title after division title only to be disappointed in the postseason. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happens in Toronto this year too.
Winner: TOR Maple Leafs +175
Metropolitan Division
It was not long ago when this was the best division in hockey. Nearly every team was competitive throughout the 2010s, with the Penguins hoisting a handful of Cups, the Caps finally getting theirs in 2018, and then the Rangers, Islanders, and Blue Jackets all being consistent playoff teams. Even when the Devils and Flyers were going through their doldrums, they were still relatively respectful. But that was then. This is now.
The Hurricanes are the favorite to win the division for the second straight season. They already had a team built to win a lot of hockey games, and then they added Dmitri Orlov to one of the sturdiest blue lines in the league. The Devils announced their arrival out of their years-long rebuild by being one of the best teams throughout the regular season last year and winning a round in the postseason. They locked up Timo Meier over the summer to round out a scary forward group, and will add rookie Luke Hughes to a stout defensive unit. If they can get even average goaltending out of Akira Schmid and Vitek Vanecek, look out for this club. Their Hudson River rival Rangers were a major disappointment last year, but still have a deep roster and perhaps the best goalie in the world with Igor Shesterkin. Hard to count them out.
One of the year's biggest storylines will be what happens in Pittsburgh. Crosby, Malkin, and Letang have at least one more concerted kick at the can, and Erik Karlsson came over from San Jose to add some mustard to that kick. Even though the Islanders are a boring, bland, bleh team that doesn't spark much excitement, they still made the playoffs last year and some could argue that Ilya Sorokin is actually the world's best netminder. The Caps are officially in Ovi-chasing-Gretzky's-goal-record mode. The Flyers are admittedly in a full on rebuild, and the Blue Jackets are searching for answers after the Mike Babcock blowout just 2 days before the start of training camp. This is Carolina's division to lose, New Jersey's to seize, or the Rangers' to steal.
Winner: NJ Devils +240
NHL Conference Winner Bets
Western Conference
When all is said and done, I think we're looking at the following teams who can genuinely vie for the Western Conference crown: Oilers, Golden Knights, Stars, Avalanche. I think the Kings run into too much trouble with their Pacific Division foes. The Wild and the Kraken are good but not great, and the rest of the field is just the rest of the field. At the time of this writing, both the Oilers and Avalanche are +500 to win the conference. McDavid and MacKinnon are both out for blood this year. But if not now for the Oilers, when?
Winner: EDM Oilers +500
Eastern Conference
The rub on Rod Brind A'Mour's all-hands-on-deck system that he has his team deploy is that it doesn't open the door for any bona fide gamebreakers, the kind of gamebreakers you need to go all the way. Like a Jonathan Marchessault for Vegas last year, or a Nathan MacKinnon for Colorado the year before that, or a combination of Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point for the back-to-back Bolts squads. Well, I think Andrei Svechnikov can change that narrative this year for the Canes.
The Maple Leafs and Devils certainly have no shortage of gamebreaking talent on their respective benches, but both groups still need to prove it in the postseason. Then there's the Rangers, Lightning, or heck, even the Panthers and Bruins, just lurking there in the shadows to steal a series from the aforementioned hopefuls. The East will be tough to call. My brain wants me to take the Hurricanes, but this is a gambling rag at the end of the day, and my gambling gut is looking at the Rangers +750 and, well, let's get frisky.
Winner: NY Rangers +750
Presidents' Trophy
This will weigh on my decision for the Cup winner, but I'll get to that in a sec. The Presidents' Trophy winner has only 1 the Cup one time in the last 2 decades, with the last being the 2013 Blackhawks. With that track record, it's not necessarily a prerequisite to win this thing, but I don't think Connor McDavid and the Oilers will care about prerequisites in their warpath this season.
Winner: EDM Oilers +600
Stanley Cup Winner
If my Conference Winner picks hold true, it's because no one could outscore the Oilers and Igor Shesterkin and the feisty Rangers D corps shut down every opposition in the East. Shesterkin in himself is one of those gamebreakers that an eventual Cup winner needs. Think of Jonathan Quick when the Kings won their Cups. Or Jordan Binnington for the Blues in 2019, or Braden Holtby and "the save" for the Caps in 2018. Or even go back to the dominating days of Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy. But if this matchup were to pan out, I would liken it to the 2003 Cup Final where the Devils beat the Ducks in 7, but JS Giguere stole the Conn Smythe for absolutely standing on his head for Anaheim throughout that entire postseason. Maybe Shesterkin has that in him, maybe he doesn't. But if these two teams meet for the Cup, you best believe McDavid and Draisaitl will do everything in their god-like powers to make sure he doesn't steal their show.
Champion: EDM Oilers +1000
