Odds for All Seven Canadian Teams to Win 2021 Stanley Cup – Leafs the Only Top-Ten Favorite
- The last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the 1993 Montreal Canadiens
- The early 2021 Stanley Cup odds don’t include a single Canadian team in the top six
- What percent chance do oddsmakers give Canada’s seven teams of breaking the 27-year drought?
The 2020 Stanley Cup is headed to Tampa Bay, meaning Canada’s Stanley Cup drought has been extended to 27 years. Multiple generations of hockey fans north of the border weren’t even born when Kirk Muller, Vinny Damphousse, and Patrick Roy led the 1993 Montreal Canadiens past Wayne Gretzky’s LA Kings.
Anyone hoping the drought comes to an end in 2021 won’t be pleased with the early Stanley Cup odds for Canada’s septet of teams. The table below displays the average of the odds from six different sportsbooks that opened their 2021 NHL futures yesterday.
Odds for Canadian Teams to Win 2021 Stanley Cup
| Team | Odds | Implied Probability | Probability W/O Juice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto Maple Leafs | +1925 | 4.94% | 4.81% |
| Edmonton Oilers | +2550 | 3.77% | 3.67% |
| Vancouver Canucks | +3200 | 3.03% | 2.95% |
| Calgary Flames | +4250 | 2.30% | 2.24% |
| Winnipeg Jets | +4250 | 2.30% | 2.24% |
| Montreal Canadiens | +6125 | 1.61% | 1.57% |
| Ottawa Senators | +10375 | 0.95% | 0.92% |
| TOTAL | N/A | 18.90% | 18.40% |
Odds as of Sep 28th, 2020.
Taking the average odds at face value, the implied probability for all seven teams, combined, is just under 19%.
The overround on the early odds (i.e. the total implied probability for all 31 teams in the league) is a surprisingly low 102.7%. Without getting too deep into the math, that means oddsmakers are giving Canadian teams a true probability of 18.4% to win the 2021 Stanley Cup.
All Else Being Equal
If the NHL was a 31-sided die and Canadian teams comprised seven of those sides, the odds of rolling a Canada would be 22.58%.
It may not seem like there is a huge difference between 22.58% and 18.4%, but that 4.18% difference means oddsmakers think the seven Canadian teams, as a whole, are nearly 20% below your average NHL team when it comes to their chances of winning the Cup.
Are the Oddsmakers Wrong?
It’s hard to argue the “yes” side of that debate. The probabilities for each individual team are not noticeably low. In a league with complete parity, all 31 teams would have a 3.23% chance to win the Cup.
Oddsmakers believe there are more elite teams (Boston, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Vegas) than complete disasters with no hope of even reaching the playoffs (Detroit, Ottawa), which means fewer teams will be above the 3.23% threshold than below it.
The website NaturalStatTrick tracks some meaningful advanced statistics. Two that are commonly accepted as indicators of future success are Expected Goals For Percentage (xGF%) and High Danger Chances Percentage (HDCF%). The former calculates how many more goals a team was expected to score than its opposition based on shot quality. The latter calculates how many “high-danger” scoring chances a team is giving up compared to its opponents. (They’re pretty similar and teams that are high up the list in one are usually high in the other.)
To be brief, not a single Canadian team ranked in the top five in either category, as shown in the table below.
| Team | xGF% (Rank) | HDCF% | 2019-20 Goal Differential |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 51.81% (8th) | 51.17% (13th) | +11 (T12th) |
| Edmonton Oilers | 48.85% (23rd) | 50.22% (18th) | +8 (14th) |
| Vancouver Canucks | 47.29% (27th) | 48.55% (22nd) | +11 (T12th) |
| Calgary Flames | 49.54% (16th) | 51.53% (9th) | -5 (21st) |
| Winnipeg Jets | 46.95% (29th) | 43.20% (30th) | +13 (10th) |
| Montreal Canadiens | 51.75% (9th) | 52.63% (6th) | -9 (24th) |
| Ottawa Senators | 49.31% (18th) | 51.73% (8th) | -52 (30th) |
Odds as of Sep 28th, 2020.
Like point differential in the NFL, goal differential is commonly accepted as a decent indicator of which teams are poised to progress/regress in the coming season.
Most of the Canadian teams are clustered in the middle of the league in goal differential. None are better than 10th and none had a total higher than +13. (Aside: the juxtaposition of Winnipeg’s xGF% and HDCF% with their +13 goal differential doubles as Connor Hellebuyck Vezina resume.)
To put that in perspective, the top-two teams in the league (Tampa Bay and Boston) finished at +53 and +50, respectively. Five teams were at 32 or higher.
Perhaps there are some hidden figures that belie the bleak outlook for Canada’s teams next season. Perhaps Kirk Muller will come out of retirement at age 54 and go on a mid-May heater.
Nothing is certain.
Sascha was a hockey player in his youth, a lawyer in his capricious mid-20s, and has been with SBD since 2014. He specializes in football, basketball, politics, baseball, and hockey.
