2025 Stanley Cup Final odds: Oilers given an early edge against defending champion Panthers

New York Times

a day ago

The betting odds for the Stanley Cup playoffs have shown the race to claim the Cup to be largely a series of coin flips. There have been favorites and underdogs to win it all, but the gap has been small, and no clear top team has emerged. It's fitting that the Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers is also incredibly close in the odds.
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When the odds first came out following Edmonton's 6-3 win at Dallas in Game 5 on Thursday, the teams were listed at a dead-even -110 on both sides on BetMGM. That has since shifted a bit, with the Oilers now the favorite to lift the Stanley Cup at -120. The defending champion Panthers are even-money (+100).
The main storyline is, of course, that this is a rematch of last year's final. The Panthers won that one in seven games, but not before blowing a 3-0 series lead.
One difference from last year's series is that the Oilers start on home ice. Last year, Florida got to host Game 7 on the heels of three losses that saw the Oilers outscore Florida by a combined score of 18-5. It would have been a lot harder to imagine Florida winning Game 7 on the road with so little momentum.
Florida has a chance to be the first back-to-back champion since Tampa Bay won in 2020 and 2021. Edmonton is seeking to be the first Canadian champion since 1993. A Canadian team has won the NBA Finals (the Toronto Raptors in 2019), there has been a Canadian U.S. Open tennis champion (Bianca Andreescu in 2019) and even an American team has won the CFL's Grey Cup (Baltimore Stallions in 1995) more recently than a Canadian team has lifted the Stanley Cup. That storyline existed last year for Edmonton, but now Connor McDavid and the Oilers get another crack at it.
Both teams are coming off comfortable wins in the conference finals. Florida knocked off Carolina in five games, and Edmonton got past Dallas in five as well. En route to the final, both teams won two series in five games and had one series that was much scarier.
Edmonton's journey to the final got off to a rough start. The Oilers lost the first two games of the playoffs to the LA Kings. The Oilers trailed Game 3 in the third period and needed a goal in the last 30 seconds of regulation to force overtime in Game 4, but Edmonton rattled off four straight wins to advance. The Oilers then beat Vegas and Dallas in five games, meaning Edmonton has gone 12-2 in the last 14 games this postseason.
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Florida's road has only been a touch tougher. The Panthers beat in-state rival Tampa Bay in five games before needing seven games to get by Toronto, winning the decisive game in Canada. Florida dropped the first two games to the Maple Leafs and trailed Game 3 by two goals, but stormed back in that series.
Now, the Panthers and Oilers meet for the fifth rematch in the expansion era.
Stanley Cup Final rematches in the expansion era (since 1967):
◽️Canadiens vs. Blues (1968-69)◽️Canadiens vs. Bruins (1977-78)◽️ Oilers vs. Islanders (1983-84)◽️ Penguins vs. Red Wings (2008-09)◽️ Oilers vs. Panthers (2024-25)
H/t @AdamVingan pic.twitter.com/6YImgcHGC8
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) May 30, 2025
Of those four previous rematches, the defending champion won the rematch twice. The Montreal Canadiens pulled off that feat twice, while the more recent rematches had flipped outcomes. The New York Islanders beat Edmonton in 1983, but the Oilers won in 1984. Detroit beat Pittsburgh in 2008, but the Penguins beat the Red Wings in 2009.
As for the Conn Smythe Trophy, given to the MVP of the playoffs, McDavid is unsurprisingly the clear favorite. He is even-money on BetMGM. McDavid won the award last year despite the Oilers not winning the Cup. He became the first person to win the Conn Smythe Trophy on the losing team since goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere in 2003 for Anaheim.
With that precedent set, it's hard to pick against McDavid. Would voters spring for him in a losing effort a second time, though?
Florida's Sergei Bobrovsky (+250) and Aleksander Barkov (+500) are ahead of Edmonton's Leon Draisaitl (+900) before a big dropoff to Matthew Tkachuk at +2000.
The series starts Wednesday and has a fairly spread-out schedule. Game 7 would be on June 20, 16 days after Game 1.
(Photo of Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)