2024-25 NHL Betting Guide: 6 Burning Questions As Puck Drops

, ,
Written By Evan Scrimshaw | Last Updated
NHL odds 2025
Credit: Associated Press

With NHL betting resuming with the start of the regular season today, the race for Lord Stanley’s Cup is about to commence. The reigning champion Panthers lost some talent, and the Oilers stocked up after a busy offseason, moving Edmonton to the favorite in Stanley Cup odds. Toronto bet on old talent to save their playoff spot, and the race for the playoffs will be fascinating in both Conferences. 2025 NHL odds show great opportunity, as do props up and down the board.

As the NHL season starts, let’s check out the 6 burning questions for this season. Make sure to check out the best sports betting sites when making futures bets on 2025 NHL odds, to get the best price.

2024-25 NHL odds: Futures

6 Burning Questions: Betting Guide For 2024-25 NHL odds

1. Are The Leafs Frauds?

Yes.

With the NHL’s playoff format, the Leafs project to be at best a Wild Card team this year. Assuming Jeremy Swayman gets signed by season start, the Bruins and Panthers continue to project above the Leafs. The Lightning added talent this year and got younger. If Andrei Vasilesky plays better this season after a full, healthy offseason, the Lightning should jump Toronto. And then the Leafs are in a morass with a ton of teams.

More importantly for Leafs fans, this team is worse than it was last year. Their forward group got worse, with the loss of Tyler Bertuzzi, and Auston Matthews is due regression off a 69 goal season. The Leafs forwards also were incredibly healthy last year, which could regress. If John Tavares’ aging curve speeds up a bit this year, there’s every chance the Leafs can miss the playoffs.

Yes, the defense is better this season, but Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are over 30 and could easily decline or get hurt. The goaltending is also a huge risk, as Joseph Woll is given the starting job despite never playing more than 35 games in his professional career and being oft-injured.

The big reason to think the Leafs are in trouble is the East is rising. Of the non-playoff teams, New Jersey, Ottawa, and Detroit should all be better. It’s hard to say in specific any of them could knock out the Leafs, but it’s very possible one of those steals Toronto’s spot. At its price, it’s a must bet.

It was one of my first bets on 2024-25 NHL odds.

2. Will Vancouver Crash?

The biggest frauds of the 2023-24 season, this is the year regression hits the Canucks. This is a team that led the NHL in shooting percentage last year, and even in the playoffs they got insane goaltending and a truly terrible run from Stuart Skinner to stay alive as long as they did. 

This year, they’re in huge trouble. Thatcher Demko has a weird, undisclosed injury that sounds more like an ailment on House than a normal hockey injury, the Canucks lost Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm, and their defense core behind Hughes-Hronek is pitiful.

Fundamentally, they were a mediocre team last year outside of their hot start. Through 41 games, they were top of the league with 62 points. Then they cooled off and only got 47 points in their next 41 games, and that was with Demko, whose return timeline is about as unclear as can be in sports.

The only case for Vancouver keeping a playoff spot is mostly that a lot of the other contenders for spots are weak, but as a serious contender Vancouver’s a paper tiger. Fade at these 2025 NHL odds.

3. Is New Jersey Going To Be Great?

Until the playoffs, probably.

Sheldon Keefe is a great regular season coach who has managed to put together 3 100+ point seasons in his only three full seasons in Toronto. The Devils made the playoffs two years ago before a season from hell kept them out last year. Jack Hughes is finally healthy, Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec are a year older and should be better this year on the backend, and most of all they finally have a goalie.

Jacob Markstrom is a huge addition for the Devils, who came 27th in team Save Percentage last year. Markstrom put up an eminently serviceable .905 last year on a terrible Flames team that couldn’t defend. If they get that this year, they’re easily in the Top 2 of the Atlantic. Get the .922 Markstrom put up in Calgary in 21-22, and Jersey’s winning the President’s Trophy.

Keefe is a huge factor in this too, as much as Leafs fans have decided he sucks because the Core 4 forget how to score in Game 7s. Keefe has been instrumental in the development of key young stars before, and he got amazing regular seasons out of Matthews, Marner, and Nylander with regularity. He can help the Hughes brothers and Nemec and Nico Hischer get better.

This Jersey team is really, really good. It would also be deeply fitting for Keefe to win a Cup in Year 1 with a non-Leafs team, so they’re getting my money. Here’s what I found that I like in 2024-25 NHL odds.

4. Can The Panthers Survive After Two Late June Runs?

The Panthers lost Brandon Montour, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Vladimir Tarasenko from the Cup winning squad. They’ve also made the Cup Finals two years in a row, which can lead to fatigue. That said, that’s probably more of a playoffs problem, because this team will be able to score with the best of them.

Keeping Sam Reinhart means their top two lines from the Cup run stay together. Matthew Tkachuk will still be able to drive play from the second line effectively, and Anton Lundell stepped up in the playoffs as an effective scorer.

Whether this team can truly contend will come down to goaltending. Sergei Bobrovsky was unreliable when he was in his prime and is now old and unreliable. That said, given the amount USA Hockey fans have hyped up Spencer Knight, he should be able to step in if and when Bobrovsky forgets how to play for a few weeks. Knight might be the X factor in April and May, but even mediocre goaltending will be fine to get them a good playoff spot. I’ve also bet them to win the Atlantic, as part of my general contempt for the Leafs.

5. Will Any Young Team Actually Be Good Soon?

There’s a bunch of teams that have had high picks in recent years, have the high end talent, and just still kinda suck. Ottawa, Detroit, Buffalo, Anaheim, San Jose all fit this bill, as does the Utah Hockey Club. The Blackhawks haven’t been abjectively bad for as long, but they have Connor Bedard, so their timeline gets sped up. One of these teams has to be good at some point, right?

My instinct is to say Ottawa, but I grew up a 7 minute drive from the arena so I’m more than a little biased here. It’s just clear at this point that we need one of these teams to not suck so that we actually have some chance at competitive playoff spots and not the same 19 teams competing for the 16 slots that we’ve had the last two years. Someone get frisky!

6. Will The Cup-Losing Oilers Get Redemption?

The Oilers had a great offseason, adding Jeff Skinner and Viktor Ardvisson for cheap, retaining Adam Henrique, getting rid of Cody Ceci, and ending the Leon Draisaitl noise with an extension before training camp started. Yes, they have a hole on the right side of their defense with the loss of Philip Broberg, but the picks they got from not matching Broberg and Dylan Holloway will prove useful at the trade deadline.

More importantly, the Oilers started like absolute garbage last year, going 2-9-2 to start the season. If they don’t bleed a dozen points at the beginning of the season they will easily win the Pacific and give themselves home ice throughout at least two, if not more rounds. Had they had a better record, maybe they win Game 7 last year. More to the point, this forward group is better, they have the assets to get the best right defenseman available in February, and they’ll be able to pace Leon and Connor McDavid because they won’t need every point possible in the dog days of the season.

Every other serious contender lost talent and got worse this summer except Edmonton. They are deeper than last year, Kris Knobloch has a full training camp with his team now, and they’re just clearly the best team in hockey. Nobody else has two Top 5 players. Sometimes it’s just obvious who the best team is, like it was in 2022 when Colorado felt inevitable. That’s this Edmonton team. It’s their year.

Here’s another way I’m leaning into the Oilers this season. Best of luck betting on 2024-25 NHL odds.

Photo by AP/Rebecca Blackwell

RELATED ARTICLES