Odds Favor Bruins And Avalanche To Lead NHL’s Top Seeds

• The NHL is preparing for a unique restart to their season that will see the top four teams in each conference go head-to-head in a round-robin to decide the No. 1 seed.
• In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins (+180) lead all odds to come out on top, followed by the Tampa Bay Lightning (+260).
• In the Western Conference, oddsmakers predict a tight battle with the Colorado Avalanche (+225) getting the edge over the Vegas Golden Knights (+230) and St. Louis Blues (+240).

NEW YORK – The NHL decided its official plan to finish their season around a month ago, and in it, created one of the more interesting season restart formats so far.

The format features the top 24-teams in the league, with the top four teams in each conference playing a special round-robin tournament to decide the top seeding on each side of the playoff bracket.

While the format may be confusing to understand at first, the consensus around the league from players and fans is that everyone is happy to have hockey back at whatever avenue is possible.

This includes hockey bettors who can soon return to wagering on their favorite sport.

Oddsmakers have already put together some odds for these round-robin groups in each conference. Upon early analysis, some of these odds hold incredible value.

Eastern Conference

While the Boston Bruins were comfortably in first place back in March, they now have to prove they are worth their points in the round-robin challenge against some other strong teams.

The Bruins certainly deserve the favorite spot here, but bettors looking for the best value need to take a closer look at both the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Lightning was not playing their best hockey just before the season was shut down, but they are a tremendously strong team on offense and possess a +50-goal differential on the season.

Tampa is always a contender that tends to underperform in the postseason, but with the extended break all past trends have been forgiven.

The Flyers on the other hand were dominating before the break, winning nine straight games before their very last game. Philly was looking to overtake Washington in their divisional race and might be worth the +350 to shock the league and come out as No. 1.

Western Conference

Over in the Western Conference, three of these four teams have incredibly close odds to make it out of the round-robin with the most wins. Oddsmakers can barely make up their minds on this one, meaning fans of the game might be in store for some exciting matchups.

The top three of these teams have a legitimate shot of coming out of these games in the top spot. While they all possess great odds, the Colorado Avalanche have to be the readiest for this stretch of games.

The Avs dealt with terrible injury luck over the course of the season that saw stars Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog go down long-term.

Despite this, they still managed a second-place spot in the conference and will be at full health after the hiatus.

While all of the top three hold good value here, the Avalanche have the edge for a reason. For those looking for more action than just betting the top NHL seed, future bets on the Stanley Cup winner is also present at legal sportsbooks.

News tags: Colorado Avalanche | NHL | Tampa Bay Lightning