Welcome to the 2022-23 season preview as brought to you by Betway Sports. We’ll be taking a dive into each team’s offseason and what their Stanley Cup odds are for next season from the worst odds to the best. All odds are current as of the time of writing.
Florida Panthers Stanley Cup Odds: +900
I’m not feeling so hot about these Florida Panthers.
They made one of the biggest splashes of the offseason acquiring Matthew Tkachuk from the Calgary Flames, but at what cost, you may ask? A huge cost. Top-line winger Jonathan Huberdeau and top-pairing defenceman MacKenzie Weegar, to be exact.
Tkachuk is a great player, no doubt, but boy… that was a lot to give up. And when you look at the roster, it looks bleak. Flordia’s top line of Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart will be tremendous, no doubt. The second line of Tkachuk, Sam Bennett and Rudolfs Balcers should be dynamic too, but what can the third line do?
Anton Lundell looked tremendous in his rookie season last year, and Eetu Luostarinen chipped in nicely. They’ll need to take steps forward this year.
It may not take long for the Panthers to miss Weegar. He played on the top pair with Aaron Ekblad last year and was tremendous. Now, Gustav Forsling slides up to the top pair, but the depth on the backend is suspect.
Florida’s in a tough spot paying far too much money to Sergei Bobrovsky, but he and Spencer Knight should form a formidable 1-2 punch.
Are we betting on the Panthers to win the cup? I wouldn’t. I think this team is bound to take a step back this season and while they may turn it on at some point, I’d wait until the playoffs roll around to wager on their cup odds.