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The Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning will meet in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final which begins on Monday at 8 PM EST in Florida. The Bolts are heavy -275 favorites at PointsBet but the Canadiens have gotten this far by surprising every team they’ve faced and have won 10 of their 12 games as an underdog.
We’re already holding a Tampa outright ticket at +275 so we’re handcuffed by what future bet we can throw down before the series begins. Instead, we’re going to look at a total game market that lets us bet on the number of games played before crowning a champion.
Series total games— Six games (+200 at PointsBet)
Too many people thought the Maple Leafs and Golden Knights would have their way with the Montreal Canadiens but this 18th-ranked team has shown it’s built for the playoffs.
Montreal isn’t going to blow teams away with its offense (2.38 goals per game) but the Canadiens have shown they can win close games having played in 10 one-goal games in the playoffs and winning seven of them. They have also been unfazed by home crowds and have played the heel card to perfection by going 7-2 SU on the road while being set as the underdog in each of those nine games. They will shut down your top scoring options, dominate the penalty kill, make timely and game-changing saves and then beat you in transition or the counter attack.
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Goalie Carey Price has better odds to win the Conn Smythe than the Habs do to win the Cup, which shows you just how good the netminder has played all postseason. We aren’t here promoting the Canadiens to win the Cup, just proving that this series will be a lot closer than people think. The Lightning are no doubt the better team on paper and are so good that their playoff roster is $15 million over the cap space, but they’re not skating away with this series easily. The Islanders were built very similarly to the Canadiens and they took the defending champions to seven games.
So once we’re convinced that this series should go to six or seven games, where do we find the best value?
Looking at the series handicap market we see the Canadiens at +1.5 is paying +110. We would prefer a better price on this spread as Montreal was paying +170 last series versus Vegas at +1.5 on the series handicap. Instead, we see a great price on the Finals finishing in six games for +200.
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Six games is the magic number for a series to wrap up, that’s why it has the lowest odds in the market. There have been 14 series played so far in these playoffs with six of them finishing in six games.
Looking back at the previous six Stanley Cup Finals, the winner got the job done in six games four times while 40 of the last 90 playoff series finished in six games. +200 is an implied probability of 33.3 percent and with only four options in the market, we’re liking this price closer to +150 or 40 percent implied probability. If Montreal can take one of the series’ first two games, this odd should drop below +150.
We’re expecting a competitive series between two goalies who are at the top of their games and have been the playoffs’ two best netminders. With Montreal showing they can take games on the road, we love this series to go late and have settled on six games at the generous price of +200.
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