Stanley Cup Betting in Tennessee

The Stanley Cup is considered by many as the hardest trophy in sports to win. NHL players put their bodies through a physical marathon for an *82-game regular season, but that’s just the beginning, as they then need to win four best-of-seven playoff series to hoist the cup. *Note that there are 56 games for the condensed 2021 season.

Critics will be quick to nitpick the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2020 Stanley Cup, citing the oddity of games being played in a bubble. It might not have been a normal postseason, but they still needed to out-perform and outlast every other team in the NHL. The Lightning got the job done in 2020, but that means little as we head into the upcoming 2020-21 season.

The start date for the new NHL season was January 13 and the season has been shortened to 56 games per team in newly realigned divisions. The hope of fans being allowed in arenas is also still very much up in the air. Regardless of how the NHL season plays out, you can bet on who you think will win the next Stanley Cup all season. Here’s how to bet on the Stanley Cup at online sportsbooks in Tennessee, plus a guide to recent Stanley Cup trends and betting tips.

Stanley Cup Odds 2021

Stanley Cup odds are live at TN online sportsbooks. Whether you think one of the league’s elite teams will win the Cup or a huge underdog will make a Cinderella-run, you can check out the Stanley Cup betting odds for the Nashville Predators and the 30 other NHL teams below.

Best Nashville Predators Stanley Cup odds

The Predators had a slightly disappointing 2019-20 season based on the standard the organization has set. They went 35-26-8 in 69 games before the NHL suspended their season on March 12. They made the playoff bubble, but lost their best-of-five first-round matchup against the Arizona Coyotes in four games.

Nashville’s struggles can be partly explained by the disappointing season from franchise legend goaltender Pekka Rinne. Rinne had a .895 save percentage in 2019-20— his career average save percentage is .914. Look for Rinne to rebound this upcoming season. If he doesn’t, Juuse Saros has proven to be a capable NHL goalie who will make more starts in net.

If the goaltending improves in 2021 and the team buys into what new coach John Hynes is preaching, the Stanley Cup is not out of the question for the Predators. Here you’ll see the best Stanley Cup & playoff odds for the Predators at sportsbooks across Tennessee listed below:

Early 2021 Stanley Cup favorites

• Tampa Bay Lightning: The defending Stanley Cup Champions are expected to have a good chance of repeating their success. The Lightning set regular-season records in 2018-19, but were quickly eliminated in the playoffs. Their regular season wasn’t quite as impressive in 2019-20, but they’d trade the regular-season success for a Stanley Cup.
• Colorado Avalanche: The Colorado Avalanche finished 2nd in the Central Division in 2019-20 with a record of 42-20-8. They were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs in seven games by the Dallas Stars, but they lost their top two goaltenders due to injury in the series. They are led by Nathan MacKinnon who is a top-5 player in the sport. During the off-season, they’ve added five-time 20 goal scorer Brandon Saad from Chicago and top-four defenseman Devon Toews from the Islanders.
• Vegas Golden Knights: The Vegas Golden Knights won the Pacific Division in 2019-20 with a record of 39-24-8. They were eliminated in the Western Conference Finals by the Dallas Stars in five games. Vegas was the best team in the league in 2019-20 in terms of expected goals and shot attempt share. They upgraded their goaltending position by trading for Robin Lehner at the trade deadline and signing him to a five-year extension. Also, they signed Alex Pietrangelo, one of the league’s best defensemen.

Top 2021 Stanley Cup contenders

• Dallas Stars: The Stars were two wins away from winning the Stanley Cup themselves, losing to the Lightning in the Cup final in 6 games. The Stars also went on this run without Ben Bishop, their starting goaltender who is considered one of the best in the game. The Stars are stingy and have one of the best defensive and goaltending units in the sport.
• Boston Bruins: The Boston Bruins were far and away from the best team in the league during the 2019-20 regular season. They lost just 14 times in regulation through 70 games. They were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by the eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Patrice Bergeron centers what most consider the best forward line in the sport with David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand.
• Philadelphia Flyers: The Flyers took off in the second half of the 2019-20 regular season, finishing with a record of 41-21-7. They were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs in seven games by the New York Islanders. Young goaltender Carter Hart has already begun to establish himself as one of the best goalies in the league.

How to bet on Stanley Cup finals in Tennessee

State legislation made sports betting legal in Tennessee in April 2019, and sportsbooks are finally live as of Nov. 1, 2020. This means legal sports betting will be up and running well before the start of the 2020-21 NHL betting season.

Sports betting in Tennessee is available only online, as well as through betting apps for your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone/tablet. There will be no brick-and-mortar physical sportsbooks in Tennessee. But any bet you want to place can be easily made through your cell phone or computer from anywhere in the state.

Many sportsbook companies applied for licenses to conduct business in Tennessee, but four have already been approved and launched on Nov.1.

DraftKings Sportsbook is a huge name in the sports betting industry. DraftKings has a sleek mobile app and boasts an expansive and diverse amount of NHL markets to bet on including Stanley Cup futures.

FanDuel Sportsbook is also in Tennessee. It offers an awesome app with easy registration and deposit processes. FanDuel offers plenty of NHL options to bet on, whether it’s spreads, totals, moneylines, parlays, or props.

BetMGM has already formed a relationship with the Tennessee Titans, meaning it will be able to offer exclusive offers for sports bettors. The app has first-rate sign up offers and a great list of options to bet on, including the Stanley Cup and the Predators.

Tennessee Action 24/7 is a locally owned sportsbook operator who has been approved to operate in the state as well.

How to create an online sportsbook account in TN

1. Check out the sportsbooks listed on this page. Go through the offers and see which of the options catches your eye. When you’ve made your decision, click the links on this page to get an exclusive sign-up promotional offer.
2. Register your account. Fill out any necessary information when prompted. Choosing a unique username, setting a secure password, and verifying your identity are all necessary to start betting.
3. Claim your bonus bets or any promotional offer that you are eligible for. Don’t miss out on enhanced odds or free money!
4. Download the app for the sportsbook you’ve chosen from the sportsbook itself. The apps are built to make it easier to bet from your phone at any time.
5. Deposit funds through the available methods. This step is not always necessary as some sportsbooks will give you a bonus bet upon sign-up.
6. Go to the NHL section of the app and bet on who you think will win the Stanley Cup!

Types of Stanley Cup bets

Futures

A futures bet is a bet made on an event that will occur in the future. You receive fixed odds based on the time you place your bet. The value in a future bet is that if you predict something will happen, you will get better odds in the futures market than if you bet on it when the event does happen.

If you bet on Nashville to win the Stanley Cup in the pre-season, you’ll get a better price than if you were to bet on Nashville to win the Stanley Cup while they’re in the playoffs.

An example of this would be if the Predators were +2000 to win the Stanley Cup during the pre-season. If they’re playing good hockey, their odds might drop to +1500 during the regular season.

If they qualify for the playoffs, their odds will likely drop to +1000. If they win a round, they’ll drop to +500. If they’re in the conference finals, they’ll drop to +200. If they’re in the NHL Stanley Cup Final, they might be -150 favorites.

Think of it this way: you and a friend both bet on the Predators to win the Stanley Cup through the DraftKings app. You both bet $100 on it. You placed your bet via the futures market during the pre-season at +2000. Your friend waited until the Predators made the Stanley Cup Final and bet the Predators at -150. Your $100 will return a profit of $2000. His $100 will return him a profit of $66.67. The value of future bets can be enormous.

Future bets are not paid out until your event is settled. If you bet on the Predators to win the Stanley Cup, your money will be held until either they win the Stanley Cup or they are eliminated from contention. Think of it as investing money that can’t be touched for a certain amount of time with a large potential return-on-investment.

Individual Stanley Cup game bets

If you don’t want to bet on the Stanley Cup through the futures market, you can wait until the Stanley Cup Final and bet each game individually. There are three main markets in Stanley Cup Final betting.

• Moneyline: A moneyline bet is quite simply a bet on which team you think will win. It doesn’t matter if the score is 1-0 in quadruple overtime or a 7-0 dominant win. Your bet is graded and paid out the same way. The moneyline odds are set based on the probability of a team winning a certain game. If a team is -150 on the moneyline, they are the favorite to win. You would need to bet $150 to win a profit of $100. If you wanted to bet the underdog to win at +130, a $100 bet would win you a profit of $130.
• Totals: A totals (over/under) bet is betting on the number of goals you think will be scored in the game. Most hockey games have a total of 5.5 goals. If two high-powered offensive teams face-off, you might see the total get up to 6.5 goals. If two defensive teams get together, you might see a total of 5. You will very rarely see a total lower than 5 or higher than 6.5 in hockey. If you think the Predators win Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final by a score of 3-1, you should bet under 5.5 goals.
• Spread: The point spread in hockey is called the puck line. The puck line in hockey games will always be 1.5 goals. In hockey, underdogs win games outright every night. Due to this, the spread can’t be bigger than 1.5 goals. Also, this causes the favorite’s puck-line to almost always be a plus-money underdog.

For example, if Nashville is -150 to win the game, their -1.5 puck-line will be in the +170 range. If Nashville wins the game by two goals or more, the -1.5 puck-line would be a winner. If Nashville wins the game by just one goal, or loses the game altogether, then betting the Predators on the puck-line would be a losing bet.

Other types of Stanley Cup bets

• Live bets: You can bet on the games live as they are happening, even after they’ve started. The odds adjust for what is going on in the game. This offers tremendous value if you play it correctly. Remember not to overreact though as sports have shifted in momentum. If you are watching the game, and the team you think is going to win gives up the first goal, you can place a live bet at even better odds than were offered pregame. If you notice a goalie is looking strong early and having an awesome game, you can live bet the under.
• Props: Prop bets are any type of bet that doesn’t fall into the above categories. Some common types of prop bets for Stanley Cup betting include:
  • Team to score first: Simply bet on which team you think will score the first goal of the game.
  • Player to score: If you think a player is going to score a goal, you can place a bet on him to score in the game.
  • Period bets: You can bet on what you think will happen in each period of every game. If you think the teams will come out slow, you can bet the first period under. If you think a team is going to make a comeback in a game, you can bet them to win the third period.

There’s no shortage of options for betting on the Stanley Cup. There’s an action for every kind of sports bettor.

Stanley Cup betting trends

1. Go East

Fans of the Predators might not want to hear this, but the Stanley Cup has been spending a lot of time in the Eastern Conference lately. After the Western Conference won four straight Cups from 2012-2015, the East has responded by winning four of the last five championships. The Tampa Bay Lightning continued this trend in 2020 by beating the Dallas Stars in the final.

2. Fade the #1 seeds

Since 2014, only one team that entered the playoffs as a number-one seed has won the Stanley Cup. That would be the Washington Capitals in 2018. No other team that won the Stanley Cup in that time frame even won their division.

Tampa Bay finished 2nd in their division in 2019-20. The St. Louis Blues finished 3rd in the Central Division in 2018-19, but that didn’t stop them from going all the way. Regular season dominance is not at all necessary to go on a deep playoff run.

Stanley Cup betting tips

1. Don’t be afraid to bet an underdog with long odds

Hockey is a sport with a lot of variances, meaning the final score doesn’t always match up perfectly with what’s going on in the game. Plenty of times the far better team loses the game because of special-teams or goaltending. St. Louis was the worst team in the NHL for over half of the regular season in 2018-19.

They got hot and went on a run that never stopped. In 2012, the Los Angeles Kings entered the playoffs as an 8 seed and then swept the best team in the league in the first round en route to the Stanley Cup championship. A longshot underdog isn’t as dumb as it may seem on the surface.

2. Stay on top of injuries and lineup changes

You can do all the research you want on a matchup, but that research will be mostly worthless if you don’t account for a team missing a star player due to injury. Your analysis might lead you to bet the under in a game, but then the game goes way over because you didn’t realize the teams were starting their back-up goaltenders.

At the same time, don’t overreact to an injury. Individual players are only a small part of their teams. A lot of times one player doesn’t make as much of an impact on a game as it seems.

3. Pay attention to things like travel and back-to-back games

It’s a fact that a team that played the night before is likely going to lose the game if they’re playing a rested team that didn’t play the previous night. If a team has traveled from New York to Los Angeles to Minnesota then back to Arizona and New York in the past week, you have to factor that into your handicapping strategy.

As hard as it is to believe at times, these players are humans as well and these things affect their ability to perform at a high level. We expect professional athletes to perform at their highest level in every game, but any sports fan knows teams come out with clunkers all the time. Digging into things that may not seem important is the difference between a winning bet and a losing bet sometimes.

In the Stanley Cup Final, remember to factor in things like how long of a rest a team has had before the series, how many games they’ve played in the playoffs so far compared to their opponent, and other factors that might be overlooked.

STANLEY CUP RESULTS

Best Bars in Nashville to watch the Stanley Cup Final

Bailey’s is a go-to Preds bar given its location near Bridgestone Arena. Lots of pool tables and satellite and cable coverage of virtually any sporting event are added benefits.

• Location: 408 Broadway, Nashville
• Telephone: (615) 254-5452

City Tap House has over 60 craft beers on tap and an 18-foot television screen to scream towards for late-game Preds penalty kills.

• Location: 204 3rd Ave S, Nashville
• Telephone: (615) 922-4015

Barlines is another staple Preds bar and a stone’s throw from the Bridgestone Arena inside the Omni Hotel. 22 flat-screen TVs make it an ideal place to hang out and watch the Preds battle for their 14th visit to the playoffs since 2004.

• Location: 250 5th Ave S, Nashville
• Telephone: (615) 761-3644