The NHL officially has their Stanley Cup Final matchup set. The Montreal Canadiens will take on the reigning champion Tampa Bay Lightning in what figures to be an epic battle between two powerhouses. And if you're in the market for 2021 NHL Stanley Cup Final betting odds and predictions, you've come to the right place.
Here are the opening NHL Stanley Cup Final odds, courtesy of BetOnline:
| Team |  |
|---|---|
| Tampa Bay Lightning | -265 |
| Montreal Canadiens | +225 |
Stanley Cup odds move quickly when we reach the Final. You'll want to double-check these hockey betting lines with BetOnline or other top online sportsbooks before deciding on your wager—especially if you're getting your NHL Stanley Cup futures in after the series already starts.
2021 Stanley Cup Final Betting Breakdown
Fair warning: This isn't your usual NHL Stanley Cup betting preview. Oh, make no mistake, we have your Stanley Cup champion prediction. We'll begin there. But we're also tackling various Canadiens-Lightning props so you can maximize your potential returns.
Without further delay, let's hop to it!
Stanley Cup Prediction: Lightning (-265) vs. Canadiens (+225)
NHL bettors should count themselves lucky that oddsmakers are not favoring the Lightning by a heavier margin. While they have lost more games in the playoffs (six) than the Canadiens (five), their wins have by and large been flashier.
Tampa Bay has outscored their opponents so far by a total of 21 goals. That's 10 goals more than the second-place Colorado Avalanche and 15 more than Montreal's mark (plus-six).
Not surprisingly, the Lightning don't mess around on offense. Their 58 goals lead the playoffs, and they pride themselves on ensuring rival goalies have to face a ton of volume between the posts. Tampa Bay is a good reminder there is value in simply shooting rather than just scoring. The more pressure you put on opposing goalkeepers and defensemen, the more wear and tear they'll have on them later in the series.
This is not to say the Canadiens are fighting a hopeless case. This is the NHL. Upsets happen all the time.
Montreal's rail-thin goal differential is actually part of their charm. They have thrived amid ultra-close games. Their five overtime victories are a postseason high and come against only one loss. Scrapping like hell defensively for most of the regulation puts them in a position to win games because they scored early, or because they kept things close enough to strike later.
Conversely, the Lightning have not enjoyed the same type of late-game success. They are 0-3 in overtime games. That isn't necessarily a telltale of their personnel, but the way they play on offense—fast, furious, frenetic—isn't conducive to long-term sustainability. If you keep them on the ropes for 60 minutes of regulation, you'll get a noticeably more sluggish team in the bonus period.
Still, we can't quite wrap our heads around how the Canadiens are supposed to slow Tampa Bay's offense four times in seven tries. The Lightning house the postseason leader in goals scored (Brayden Point) and assists (Nikita Kucherov).
Also: Tampa Bay is far from a one-way team. Goalie Andrei Vasilevski is saving a whopping 93.6 percent of the shots that come at him—the highest rate in the league. That doesn't bode too well for a Canadiens offense that's not brimming with firepower in the first place.
OSB Stanley Cup Prediction: Lightning (-265)
Stanley Cup Over/Under Total Games
- Over 5.5: -150
- Under 5.5: +120
Anyone who follows the NHL knows that longer best-of-seven series are a trend. Low-scoring sports beget tightly contested postseason battles, and in the NHL specifically, coaches are more apt to make adjustments from game to game so that it becomes a chess match.
That said, we do consider the Lightning to be substantially better than the Canadiens. And yet, a +120 isn't really a big enough payout for us to roll the dice.
If that climbs up to +150 before Game 1, then by all means take a look at it. Otherwise, it makes sense to go with the over. After all, just two Stanley Cup Finals have lasted fewer than six contests since 2008.
OSB Prediction: Over 5.5 Games (-150)
Stanley Cup Final Series Score
- Lightning 4-0: +625
- Lightning 4-1: +350
- Lightning 4-2: +375
- Lightning 4-3: +400
- Canadiens 4-0: +2000
- Canadiens 4-1: +1000
- Canadiens 4-2: +650
- Canadiens 4-3: +650
Picking the Lightning in five has real appeal to us. Again: They are much better than the Canadiens both on paper and in practice. It wouldn't surprise us if they win the first two games of the series in a decisive fashion and turn this into a non-decision.
With this in mind, we have to give credit to the Canadiens' late-game execution and stamina, as well as their defensive ability. They should be able to keep a handful of games, which in turn should position them to snag two victories.
OSB Prediction: Lightning in six games (+375)
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