Boston Bruins: Heading into the playoffs as Stanley Cup favorites
By Luke Ryan
The Boston Bruins, along with the Tampa Bay Lightning are betting favorites heading into this season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Among those in the Eastern Conference; the Boston Bruins and Lightning lead the way with OddsShark rating the Bruins at +600 to the Lightning’s +550 as favourites to take out the Stanley Cup this summer.
More than most years, this Stanley Cup is going to be harder to judge though; all of these teams are coming off the back of an extended break in play and will not likely be at their best until at least a couple of rounds into the play-offs.
As a result, we could see some big upsets and teams proceeding to the later rounds that in a normal year wouldn’t have had much of a chance. Being favourites is simply a reflection upon the awesome regular season the Boston Bruins had and should not be any reason to rest on our laurels.
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The general consensus seems to be that one of the Eastern Conference teams is going to go all of the way this summer, with the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche a respectable +700 and +750 respectively.
Beyond them, you’re looking at the Philadelphia Flyers at +1000, St. Louis Blues at +1100 and then the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins at +1200.
That’s 5 of the top 8 betting favourites all coming from the East; this also highlights the challenge the Boston Bruins are facing. To even make it to face a team from the West in the Stanley Cup Final, they have to overcome multiple teams that bookmakers see as strong chances.
You can make a clear argument that betting odds mean nothing at the end of the day, especially when you consider that the St. Louis Blues would’ve paid as a huge long-shot back in January 2019.
However, Vegas doesn’t go looking to lose money and have a lot of smart people crunching numbers and coming up with these odds. It’s very fair, from a fan perspective, to see the value in all of the listed teams.
The Boston Bruins have an uphill struggle, but thankfully are quite carrying the betting favorites title. In the past, this hasn’t been a lucky one for the Lightning. We can only hope that Vegas betting on them ends up biting them again!
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Being seen as a favorite is no reason for the Boston Bruins to slack off or ease up, not that we think they would. If anything, it’s the perfect fuel to keep them striving to be the very best!