During March we went on a tear with the March Madness betting plays each day and come playoff time for Hockey I am planning to do the same. Except unlike March Madness I will not necessarily have a play for every single game because it’s a longer run and some nights you just avoid a certain spot.
The playoffs this year look great to me with the format of going 4 teams within each division, it’s an ode to the old school format but in this year we had nothing but divisional games leading up to it so the real fun becomes in the final 4 round of the playoffs once the four division winners advance. Below is the bracket.
We setup a little group to enter your picks in on the NHL.com site as well. Use this link to join and use passcode: 283 to enter your picks for fun and to keep track with the group.
Opening Round Series Plays
| Series | Series Winner Play |
| Boston vs Washington | Washington +130 |
| NY Islanders vs Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh -141 |
| Tampa Bay vs Florida | Florida +123 |
| Nashville vs Carolina | Carolina – 250 |
| Montreal vs Toronto | I like Toronto to win the series, but no play at -315 |
| Winnipeg vs Edmonton | Edmonton -186 |
| St. Louis vs Colorado | Colorado wins but no play at -400 |
| Minnesota vs Vegas | Vegas -240 |
NHL Championship Futures – Stanley Cup Champion
Carolina Hurricanes +750
Colorado Avalanche +400
I will have a bet on each side here, the team I picked to start the year (Colorado) and the team I picked late in the year to be the sneaky cindarella team (Carolina). I say that now and you are like well Carolina isn’t much of a Cindarella, but if those two wind up in the Cup Finals as I expect then the amount of hedging available will be fantastic. So get a play in on each side and those are the ones I recommend.
DFS / Daily Angle
As long as there are slates with 3+ games on them we’ll have some picks. The larger slates will generate a longer article obviously and I hope we get some relatively decent sized contests along the way from DraftKings. NHL playoffs can become entirely about game theory from game to game and we’ve had some success with that in the past. If there are daily bets they will be included in the NHL article or in Discord and tracked appropriately.