After Slow Start, Colorado Avalanche on Track for Back-to-Back Stanley Cups

This content was produced in partnership with Gambler Labs.

It took a few years with their core, but the Colorado Avalanche finally got back to the National Hockey League summit last summer, knocking off the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay to win their third championship.

Many bettors, and most Colorado sportsbooks around the country, pegged the Avalanche as the favorites (or very near the top of the futures odds) coming into the 2022-23 season.

While there have been no teams in the league as red-hot as the New Jersey Devils or the Boston Bruins, sports books have Colorado–which sat middle of the Western Conference pack coming into December with four or five games in hand on the teams it is tracking–as the top choice to win another Stanley Cup in June.

Get our free mobile app

We are still very far off from the playoffs (they do not start until the third week of April), but it is never too early to look at future odds, especially as you can get decent odds on most teams. Of course, betting futures five months before the playoffs start comes with some risks, as there can be injuries, trades, and all manner of other chaos.

Here are the top 10 odds to win the Stanley Cup :

Even with a 13-game winning streak, sports books still do not have a lot of faith in the Devils, although they have seen their odds slashed from 8/1 to near 2/1. But there are nine other teams ahead of New Jersey, including five other teams from the Eastern Conference: only four teams from the Western Conference sit inside the current top 10 futures.

Colorado (+210) is also the favorite to win the Western Conference (obviously) right now just ahead of Vegas (+300), which has started the 2022-23 campaign on fire as well. But there is then a big dropoff to the team with the third-best odds in the West (Dallas, +850) and the fourth-best odds (Edmonton, +1000), so sports books think it is probably a two-horse race between the Knights and Avalanche. They are probably right.

You can also get Cole Makar at +135 to win the Jame Norris Memorial Trophy (top defenseman in the NHL) ahead of Adam Fox (+500. Makar, in his fourth season in the NHL, has already won the Calder trophy (2020, top rookie), Norris (2022), and Conn Smythe (2022, Stanley Cup MVP), and looks to be a very good value play to pick up another piece of hardware in 2023.

Can the Avalanche, who may have ended the Tampa Bay Lightning dynasty, start their own this summer?

The odds look to be in their favor.

If you or anyone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER.