With the conclusion of the preliminary games, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey begins in earnest this week with Team Canada the odds on favorite to win the tournament.
This past week saw two major announcements from Team Canada. First it was Buffalo Sabres center Ryan O’Reilly being added to the roster as a late injury replacement for Dallas Stars standout pivot Tyler Seguin. Seguin has been ruled out due to a knee injury.
Additionally, and more importantly, head coach Mike Babcock named Carey Price the starting goalie.
Gary Leeboy of Lucky Red Sportsbook said the addition of O’Rielly didn’t move the odds at all, but the announcement of Price as a starter quickly moved the line to -120 from even.
“Sports bettors are very keen to remember Carey Price’s Olympic performance in Sochi and seem to be expecting more of the same in this tournament…”
It’s been over two years since Price was healthy for international competition. Back in 2014 he led the Canadian Team to the gold medal in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics posting an impressive 0.59 goals-against average and a .971 save percentage.
Past the stacked Team Canada it’s the Russians that have the next-best odds at +400. Russia is looking to get back to winning after a streak of poor success in International play such as the Olympics.
“It is astounding that they haven’t medaled since the 2002 Olympics. You look at their roster and it’s just as stacked as Team Canada.” said Mr. Leeboy.
Dogging the Russian program has been a lot criticism for not adapting their style of play to fit the International game along with a general lack of creativity by their coaching and management staff.
This week we did see two other odds changes. Finland went from +1,500 to +1,000 on the strength of their preliminary showings, and Team North America, coached by Edmonton’s Todd McLellan and Captained by Connor McDavid moved from +2,000 to +1,600.
Four teams saw no odds movement. Sweden and its’ defensive core led by two-time Norris winner Erik Karlsson behemoth Victor Hedman stayed at +500 just behind Russia. John Tortorella and his gruff Team USA remained at +700. Czech Republic sits at +2,200 and long shot Team Europe with players drawn from countries other than Sweden, Finland, Czechoslovakia and Russia rounds out the field at +3,300.