Panthers Keep Stanley Cup, Can They 3-Peat?

When Queen is playing “We are the Champions” and you are waking your 11-year old up at 11p at night to watch a team you grew up watching skate around with Lord Stalnley’S Cup… life is good. With apologies to all the Canadian hockey fans out there, it was a great Cup Final and it paid nicely with the +1000 ticket purchased in September.

Now it’s on to Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday, where the Pacers try and keep our +900 ticket alive. I am not as optimistic on that one.

We decided to rip the band-aid off and give advice on the Dolphins win total below. Enjoy!

Florida put the finishing touches on back-to-back Stanley Cup championships last night, putting a stamp on the newest NHL dynasty. Three trips to the Final and 2 championships for a franchise that went over 25 years without a postseason series win. This writer had a +1000 ticket purchased back in September, so we are in a festive mood. But can they 3-peat?

The champs have 17 players under contract for 2025-26, including Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, a solid core set for years to come. Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett and winger Brad Marchand, who the Panthers traded for midseason, are both free agents and will command money. Florida lost a half a dozen players last season and still repeated as champs.

Meanwhile, the BetMGM and DraftKings have installed the Edmonton Oilers, who were solidly outplayed by Florida in both Cup Finals, as the favorites for 2025-26, while FanDuel went with the Carolina Hurricanes, who the Panthers beat in 5 games.

MGM: Oilers +650, Panthers +750, Avs +800, Stars +850
DraftKings: Oilers +650, Panthers +700, Stars +900, Hurricanes +900
FanDuel: Hurricanes +700, Panthers +750, Oilers +750, Stars +850, Avs +850

The Panthers are second in most books and at a shorter price than this time last year, but there is still value on taking them to win it all again vs. teams they have already beaten repeatedly. If you are ok with the books holding your money for awhile, it could be a nice return on your investment as I did with the +1000 odds.

Oklahoma City Thunder (-6.5, 222.5) at Indiana Pacers, Game 6

The markets are reacting and figure to continue to do so to the reporting of Tyrese Haliburton’s nagging calf issue. Without any knowledge of the severity following Game 5, this game opened with the Thunder installed as a five-point favorite with a 225-point total. Since then, sportsbooks have gradually been taking points off of their Indiana projection, largely at the expense of the Pacer point guard (with varying levels of juice, his projected scoring number is down two full points from the opener).

So what do we do?