Stanley Cup Sleeper Teams – 2 Bets you Need to Make

• The 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs begin Saturday with the first round.

• The Florida Panthers are defending champions and enter the Stanley Cup playoffs as co-favorites along with the Colorado Avalanche at BetMGM at +750.

• Those are the favorites, but who are the sleeper teams you should be considering who can raise Lord Stanley’s Cup in June? I have two teams you need to consider betting on.

Sports fans know there’s nothing better than the Stanley Cup playoffs. You have playoff beards, handshake lines, rats (and other critters) hurled onto the ice, overtime games that never seem to end — and you never want them to end.

Winnipeg was the best team in the West this season, followed pretty closely by Vegas. In the East it was the Year of Goal 895 and Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

Absolutely none of that means anything now. Playoff hockey looks different, feels different and is different. Forget the favorites, forget what happened, grow the beard, show some respect. I have two sleeper teams who can win the Cup.

Edmonton Oilers (+950 at BetMGM)

My first criteria when I’m evaluating a sleeper team is recent history and wondering just why they may be considered a sleeper to begin with.

Edmonton was in the Cup finals last year and went all the way to Game 7 before losing a thriller 2-1 to Florida. The reason why they are getting such good odds is clear, they are banged up, but in the world of NHL hockey, no one is saying exactly how bad things are. Defenseman Mattias Elkholm is out for the first round, then there’s a bunch of maybes. Evander Kane? Maybe. John Klingberg? Maybe.

What we do know is the Oilers won 48 games in the regular season. All that got them was the 3 seed in the Pacific. They’ll have to go through the Kings and probably Vegas to get back to the Western Conference Finals.

Edmonton has played the Kings the last three years in the first round and beat them all three times. Some would say, well, it’s the Kings time. I’d say, the Oilers are like the KC Chiefs, yes, sure, it’s always Joe Burrow’s time, or Josh Allen’s time, or Lamar Jackson’s time, and then the Chiefs show up and beat them. Like always.

Edmonton has two of the games best players, in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Yeah, top goalie Stuart Skinner has been banged up, but he can lean on what happened last year. I feel like Edmonton has purposely held back some injured guys to be ready for this playoff run. Talented teams can do that.

Tampa Bay Lightning (+1100 at BetMGM)

Let’s do the same criteria test here on Tampa. Recent history and why are they being valued this low? They finished four points behind Toronto in the Atlantic (they lost all four games to Toronto) and they just haven’t been able to get past their rivals Florida.

But Tampa also checks a bunch of boxes. Remember, they were close to winning three straight Cups, they won in 2020 and 2021 and reached the finals in 2022. They have the No. 1 offense in the NHL, and were third in goals allowed. Nikita Kucherov had 121 points this season to lead the NHL. He’s won Cups. Brayden Point and Jake Guentzel each scored over 40 goals this season.

Tampa Bay also still has Andrei Vasilevskiy in net. He’s won two Cups, and a Conn Smythe. That’s a great resume.

Tampa Bay split with Florida this season, but did lost to the Panthers in the first round last year. If they can get past the Panthers, then they could get Toronto in the semifinals. Do you know the pressure Toronto will be under the deeper they get in the playoffs? Does the year 1967 mean anything to you?

I love the Lightning at these odds. They have a Cup pedigree and a path to glory.