NHL Future Plays

By: Rich Douglas

It's Rich's favorite day of the year. Day 1 of the NHL season! It comes in slightly ahead of Opening Day for the MLB. The NHL is coming off of a record breaking year in per day revenue, and should carry that momentum into this season as it looks to be one of the most intriguing years yet with it's balance of power. With an excellent menu of teams that should contend to win the Stanley Cup, there is money to be made in value future bets. I'll leave you with one team that you shouldn't overlook.

Ottawa Senators: 25/1 to win Stanley Cup. 14/1 to win Eastern Conference.

I've looked around and those are the average prices for the Sens. You can actually find 30 and 16/1 respectively depending on where you go. The East is obviously a bit harder to navigate through as you can see that winning the East doesn't linearly matchup with winning the Cup, but these Sens overachieved last year, and are reloaded and even more improved this season. We recommended betting them last year at 50/1 and 25/1, and if you took that advice and managed your money along the way, you should have netted some profit as they advanced into the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

They lose Daniel Alfredsson, but I see that as more of a leadership loss than a production loss. In fact, they should produce at a much greater level with the major additions of Bobby Ryan and Clarke MacArthur. Jared Cowan and Mark Methot play great supporting roles on defense behind arguably the best defenceman in the league in Erik Karlsson.

The Sens were banged up throughout last season as Karlsson, Craig Anderson, Jason Spezza, and Milan Michalek...you know, their 4 best players, all missed more than half the year. They're all back and healthy, yet the price doesn't represent that. From a metrics standpoint, Ottawa showed that their system is what leads to their success as their Fenwick Close (puck possession metric) was 52.05. To put that into perspective, their puck possession and shot output was 10th in the league, right behind San Jose, Montreal, the Rangers, and the Blues. They fit right in with those second tier teams and should only improve in that regard. I could go on and on, but just do yourself a favor and take the Senators.

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