2024-25 NHL betting preview - Five storylines to watch - ESPN

The puck dropped on the 2024-25 NHL season thousands of miles away on Friday, when the New Jersey Devils defeated the Buffalo Sabres 4-1 in Czechia, but back in North America, the focus is squarely on the best player in the world, wondering whether this season will finally be the one when he breaks through and wins the Stanley Cup.

After their run to the Stanley Cup Final last season, the Edmonton Oilers are the consensus betting favorites to win it all in 2025, showing anywhere between +700 and +850 odds across the sportsbook marketplace. Oilers phenom Connor McDavid shows odds around +150 to win the Hart Memorial Trophy, pacing the field by a wide margin.

Despite the short odds for the championship this season, the Oilers are seeing action across the board.

«I think people just feel that maybe the McDavid story can finally have that Stanley Cup ending,» BetMGM senior sports trader Matthew Rasp told ESPN. «The money's been coming in on the Oilers ever since the season ended last year.»

There are 31 other teams out there vying for the Cup and anything can happen once the chaotic playoffs start in April, but history and conventional wisdom generally say that many of the usual suspects will be the competitors over the next few months, starting with the final two teams that competed for the trophy last season.

«I think the NHL sometimes gets the reputation that it's got a lot of parity and that's just kind of not true, at least in the last 10 years or so,» said Caesars Sportsbook head of hockey Karry Shreeve. «Twelve out of 16 teams that were in the last postseason get into the next postseason. Obviously, the trick is nailing those 12 teams, but we're gonna see a lot of the same stuff.»

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