No consensus Stanley Cup betting fave; Panthers still in mix - ESPN

Bookmakers across the sportsbook marketplace don't see one consensus Stanley Cup favorite as the Florida Panthers gear up to attempt a very rare NHL three-peat.

The Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers are the co-favorites (+800) at ESPN BET, with the Dallas Stars, Vegas Golden Knights and Panthers a tier below at +900, and the Tampa Bay Lightning sporting +1000. However, no major American sportsbook has the same combination of solo or co-favorites, with Florida and Vegas taking the top billing at some shops.

«The way I look at it, there's no real clear cut, short favorite,» DraftKings Sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN. «This year, it's more wide open at the top, and then you have a whole second tier of teams that are in that 20-to-40 range. There's another 10 teams there. Could the Stanley Cup winner come from there? Absolutely. But the top tier has eight teams that we believe will contend for the title.»

The last preseason Stanley Cup favorite to win it all was Colorado (+600) in 2022.

The Panthers opened as one of the favorites to win the Cup immediately following their second straight championship. They were +600 solo favorites by mid-September following offseason contract extensions for Aaron Ekblad, Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett, and despite offseason surgery for superstar Matthew Tkachuk, who is expected back before the new year.

However, a training camp knee injury to captain Aleksander Barkov, which expects to keep him out for the entire regular season, if not longer, derailed Florida's Stanley Cup lines at most books: Several operations immediately dropped the team's championship odds, with ESPN BET briefly lengthening to +1000.

That said, the betting action on the Cats has