The Florida Panthers come into the 2025-26 season as the top-rated sportsbooks pre-season favorites to win the Eastern Conference having done so in each of the past three seasons.
The Florida Panthers are currently +300, whilst the team they have faced in two of the past three finals (Carolina Hurricanes) are just about 2nd favoured at +375 NHL betting odds.
Next in line is a huge leap in odds at +800 when looking at another back-to-back Stanley Cup winner in recent times also from Florida the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Eastern Conference feels much closer as the odds suggest, especially when taking a look at the New York Rangers at +1500 NHL betting odds.
2026 NHL Eastern Conference Odds
Can’t Argue With Florida
Although +300 isn’t exactly great odds for one team to win their conference, it’s hard to suggest anything bigger when it comes to the Florida Panthers. They have proven in each of the previous three seasons why they are as low as they are having won the three previous Eastern Conference championships (and let’s not forget back-to-back Stanley Cups).
As we stated in previous posts, the Panthers’ style of hockey is built for playoff hockey, and the fact that they came into their own during last season’s playoffs proves this point. Having had a good regular season (but somewhat under the radar) they turned up the heat during the playoffs and looked and played unstoppable at times (just ask Edmonton about game 3 of last season’s finals).
All said and done, the Panthers have re-signed Brad Marchand, and at +300 it’s hard to argue with these set of odds, at the very least one would expect them to make it into the second round of the playoffs. We are expecting them to have a slump seasons sooner or later, but right now these Panthers seem to be on the up so don’t write them off in 2026.
Our one concern is the odds, we feel theirs better value elsewhere in the conference.
Hurricanes Not Proving Their Worth
The Carolina Hurricanes have been knocking on the door for a while now having finished runners up in the East in three of the previous six seasons, but we don’t believe they are almost +400 odds better than the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Carolina could be strong yet again this season, and we wouldn’t write them off to finally become Eastern champions—our issue here is the +375 NHL betting odds available on the Hurricanes at Bet365. They haven’t lived up to their odds in recent seasons, so why believe they are going to start now.
For us, the only way Carolina win this conference is if they get lucky and end up facing and underdog team in the finals. Almost any team in the top 7 of the betting market will prove a problem for the Hurricanes. They are betable but we wouldn’t take any less than +500 NHL betting odds.
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Who Is The Best Value Bet
The Florida Panthers will be tough to beat this season, but their state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, are +800, which could be the best value bet heading into next season. The Lightning are also back-to-back Stanley Cup champions in recent years, and despite fading away a little in recent seasons, they are still one of the most dangerous teams in the division, and Nikita Kucherov is still scoring points for fun.
Besides the Lightning we would take a look at the Montreal Canadiens at +2800 NHL betting odds, the Canadiens have a lot of promising talent on their roster ahead of this season and have been slowly improving each season in the previous few years, yes it’s hard to see them winning the conference but they should play better than their +2800 odds suggest.
Of course, the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs could be strong contenders, New York is betable at their current odds, but Toronto is way underpriced in our opinion, and we wouldn’t take any less than +1500.
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*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.