Hockey Handicapping Articles

2017-18 Tampa Bay Lightning Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

You don't see this very often - the Tampa Bay Lightning failed to make the playoffs last year, yet only Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Chicago and Dallas have lower odds to win the Stanley Cup than the Lightning do. Injuries hit the team very hard last year, though, and when healthy this team has the potential to be truly potent. I have been high on this team for several years now, and at the risk of providing an early spoiler for the end of this preview I am feeling quite optimistic about them again this year. This is a team to watch.

2017-18 Edmonton Oilers Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

The Oilers ultimately didn't do too much this offseason. They traded one core player, committed $168 million to two superstars, and shuffled a bunch of depth guys. Largely, though, this is the same team that they had last year. Yet it is favored to win the Western Conference and the second choice to win the Stanley Cup. What changed? Well, they experienced winning when they knocked the Sharks out in Round 1 of the playoffs.

2017-18 Boston Bruins Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

The Boston Bruins made the postseason last year after a two-year absence. That's a little deceptive, though - they actually had one more point in 2015 when they finished fifth in the Atlantic Division than they had last year when they finished third. These three somewhat mediocre years came right after they won the President's Trophy for having the most regular-season points, but salary cap woes forced them to rebuild on the fly.

2017-18 Carolina Hurricanes Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

It has been a rough stretch for the Carolina Hurricanes - they haven't made the playoffs since 2009. Struggling for that long gives you opportunities to add young players, though, and this is now a team that has a very nice young core. Combine that with what has been a very strong offseason, and it's easy to believe that this team is moving in the right direction. They still have a lot of work to do, and there will still be bumps, but this is a better team now than they were last year, and they will only improve with time.

2017-18 Columbus Blue Jackets Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

Last year the Columbus Blue Jackets proved just how flawed the current NHL playoff format is. They had the fourth-best record in the entire NHL. Their problem, though, was that they had only the third-best record in the ridiculously stacked Metropolitan Division. That means they earned a first-round date with the defending champion Penguins, and Pittsburgh had home-ice advantage. That they lost is not shameful by any means, but it is frustrating. Under the old system that didn't value division matchups so much they would have faced Ottawa and had home-ice advantage. That's still tough, but at least it's not Pittsburgh.

2017-18 New York Rangers Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

I love hockey - I'm Canadian, so it's required. I watch a lot of it. The New York Rangers are good at hockey and more or less have been for years now. Yet, in one of those strange quirks of sports fandom that you can only understand if you are a fan yourself, I just don't care about the Rangers. Never have. I don't hate them. I don't like them. I guess I respect them. Mostly, though, they exist in a strange purgatory for me - I know they exist, but I don't pay any real attention to their existence.

2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

I've been writing NHL team previews like this for a lot of years now, so I have seen most everything. This is something new for me, though. The Minnesota Wild and the Columbus Blue Jackets were the last expansion teams back in 2000, and that was before my time. For the first time, then, I am looking at a team that didn't play the year before. The NHL won the race to place a team in Las Vegas - though not by nearly as much as they hoped to, I'm sure. Now we get to see if it can work. If Vegas can find the right combination of local support and out-of-town visitors in to watch their favorite team to make this whole thing work. It feels possible, but it also doesn't feel certain.

2017-18 Washington Capitals Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

The Washington Capitals are the boys who cry wolf. Every year they dominate the regular season - they have won three President's Trophies as regular season champs three times since 2010, including the last two years. And every year they fizzle out in the playoffs - but not before talking about how this year is going to be different and how they have solved the problems that plagued them previously. It's frankly getting tired.

2017-18 Ottawa Senators Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

Except perhaps for the Nashville Predators, the Ottawa Senators were the biggest surprise of the playoffs last year. They beat Boston and the Rangers and then took the eventual champs from Pittsburgh to overtime in Game 7. It was a heck of a run. The biggest revelation of it all was Erik Karlsson. He'd won the Norris Trophy as the league's top defenseman twice, so I obviously knew he was very good, but in those playoffs he elevated his game to a whole new level and showed just how great he truly is. And he did it while dealing with a list of injuries a mile long.

2017-18 New York Islanders Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

For the first time in a long time there is a whole lot to talk about with this New York Islanders team. And, even better, quite a bit of it is positive. Good coaching situation, solid offseason, decent prospects - not bad. Of course, there are several problems, too - it is the Islanders, after all. We don't know where they are going to be playing next year, which isn't new, and if they can't convince John Tavares to stick around for a new contract then things could really get ugly in a hurry.

2017-18 Calgary Flames Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

After six mostly bad years where they were spinning their wheels, the Flames have made the playoffs in two of the last three years. Now they need to do two things - prove that they are a consistent playoff team and not just a fringe contender hoping for wild card scraps and become a legitimate threat once they get there instead of the team that Anaheim rolled over in four games in the first round.

2017-18 New Jersey Devils Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

The New Jersey Devils were bad last year. Bad enough to finish last in the Eastern Conference and win the draft lottery. And they will be bad this year. There is no real need to panic, though. The team is doing good rebuilding work under GM Ray Shero. They are moving in the right direction, and with another couple of years of patience they should be back to a solid level of performance.

2017-18 Arizona Coyotes Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

It's the Kings who play close to Hollywood, but the offseason had by the Arizona Coyotes has been like something out of a bad movie script. There were so many storylines out there that were interesting, unexpected, or just plain bizarre that I hardly know where to start. They made trades that were far more aggressive than you could have imagined.

2017-18 Winnipeg Jets Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2017

There isn't a fanbase that wants to win more than Winnipeg's does. They aren't obnoxious about it in the way that, say, Toronto or Edmonton is. Those cities expect to win and feel like their rights have been violated when they don't. Winnipeg's love is more pure and more earnest. This team is part of the DNA of the city in a way that is unique in the league. They felt violated when the team left, and now that they are back they want a winner - something they have never really had in a meaningful way.

2017-18 Detroit Red Wings Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/8/2017

The most certain thing in sports for the last quarter century has been the Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs. Before last year they had made it in 25 consecutive seasons. That's a truly remarkable feat when you consider how competitive the league is and that they managed to reload through a couple sets of superstar players in that time. They were the model of consistency. They also had some incredible coaching, as Scotty Bowman, the greatest coach in league history, won three Cups with them, and less than three years later Mike Babcock took over and won another Cup himself.

2017-18 Buffalo Sabres Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/8/2017

The Sabres were really lousy last year - missing the playoffs for the sixth straight year and finishing last in their division after heading into the season entertaining at least minor playoff hopes. In response, they did what so many teams do in similar situations - they cleaned house. Out are GM Tim Murray and head coach Dan Bylsma. And in their place come new GM Jason Botterill, who learned from the best in the Pittsburgh organization, and new head coach Phil Housley, who spent the first eight years of his 21 years as a defenseman playing for Buffalo and has spent the last four years as an assistant in Nashville.

2017-18 Florida Panthers Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/8/2017

There are a lot of bad decisions made every year in the NHL, but the unquestionable winner last season as far as I am concerned was the move to fire Gerard Gallant as head coach of the Panthers in November. He was above .500 at the time, and he was a year removed from a very solid season. Not to mention that he is definitely one of the better coaches in the league - as was proven when the Vegas Golden Knights wasted no time before tabbing him to be the first coach in the history of their team.

2017-18 Toronto Maple Leafs Predictions and Futures Odds Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/6/2017

For the last decade (well, all my 40+ years, really) I haven't had to work too hard to summarize expectations for the Toronto Maple Leafs. They are a bad team run by morons that is going to fail to meet the bizarrely, delusionally-inflated expectations of the team's fans, who are among the least tolerable in all of sports. Short of making fun of Marvin Lewis and the Cincinnati Bengals, there is no target I have hit more consistently than the Leafs or worried about less that my prediction was going to be wrong.

2017-18 Philadelphia Flyers Predictions with NHL Futures Odds and Picks
by Trevor Whenham - 9/4/2017

The Philadelphia Flyers are a team that has really struggled to remain relevant in recent years. They show flashes of real strength, but they can't sustain it. They have made the playoffs in three of the last six seasons but never two years in a row. And now they face a massive challenge. They have to maximize the careers of guys like Claude Giroux who aren't going to be big time players forever while at the same time breaking in a whole lot of young players and trying to figure out what they have and what kind of team they can be. They are attempting to retool on the fly without losing too much ground and to get back into the playoffs.

NHL Betting Impact of Wednesday's Expansion Draft
by Trevor Whenham - 6/20/2017

After years of speculation and hand wringing, major professional sports officially arrive in Las Vegas on Wednesday night. The Vegas Golden Knights will announce the roster they have selected through the NHL expansion draft. Now, the NHL is responsible for the affair, so it will surely be an annoying and frustrating event to watch. Between all the picks, the trades, and the promise of what else could happen down the road, though, it is a fascinating and important time for bettors who are interested in the NHL.