NHL Picks (Today's Free Predictions, Tips, Parlays)

2019 Calgary Flames Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/30/2019

The Calgary Flames are my hometown team. They play their games about two miles from where I am writing this. I went to the first game they ever played in Calgary. As such, I feel qualified to report on just how gutting the first-round massacre at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche was. Calgary, like many cities, has struggled financially during the last few years. It's been rough. So, when the team was unexpectedly strong last year, winding up as the top seed in the Western Conference, it brought the city together like only a successful team can.

2019 Vancouver Canucks Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/30/2019

The Vancouver Canucks have not made the playoffs since 2015, so there is a need to rebuild - and though they aren't taking necessarily the best path to do so, that's what they are doing. Though last year was a long way from a success on the ice - just 81 points in 82 games - it did mark an important turning of the page.

2019 Minnesota Wild Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/30/2019

The offseason for the Minnesota Wild was, in a word, weird. At the end of the 2017-18 season, they hired Paul Fenton to replace long-time GM Chuck Fletcher. Fenton had come up through the Nashville organization and was well respected. Just 15 months later, though, he was fired. Things don't work out sometimes, so the fact that he was fired by itself isn't impossible to comprehend. But the Wild fired him at the end of July.

2019 Arizona Coyotes Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/30/2019

Last year was a quietly impressive year for the Arizona Coyotes. They couldn't score, ranking 28th in the league in goals scored. Their power play ranked 26th. And they were hit very hard by injuries. Yet, when the dust settled in the very good Western Conference, they had missed the wild card by only four points. I'm not suggesting that they were a good team last year, but they were strong enough, and tough enough, that they could be just a few tweaks away from respectability.

2019 Los Angeles Kings Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/30/2019

What went well for the Los Angeles Kings last season? Pretty much nothing. It was ugly from top to bottom. The team wound up with the worst record in the Western Conference and second worst overall behind only the Senators. Ilya Kovalchuk was absolutely disastrous as a free agent decision. Captain Anze Kopitar seemed to have suddenly forgotten how to play hockey - at least compared to what he is capable of.

2019 Winnipeg Jets Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/30/2019

The Central Division was very tight last year, with three teams within one point of each other. Winnipeg was tied with the eventual Stanley Cup champions, St. Louis, just a point behind Nashville. It was a battle right up until the end of the season. And it promises to be tight again. The question, though, is if Winnipeg can be right in the middle of that battle again.

2019 NHL Central Division Expert Predictions with Betting Odds and Picks
by Doc's Sports - 9/27/2019

Since the league went ahead with the realignment of the league's divisions, the Central Division has produced some of the most parity-driven seasons over the course of the last eight seasons. Since the 2012-13 season, this division has seen five different teams stake their claim as division champions, with only the Chicago and Nashville winning it on multiple occasions.

2019 Vegas Golden Knights Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/27/2019

By any normal measure, last year was a remarkable second season for an expansion team. The Vegas Golden Knights finished third in their division and made it to the seventh game of their playoff series. The fact that that would happen less than two years after the team played their first game is amazing. But it is far less amazing for a team that had a first year like Vegas did. After you make the Stanley Cup finals, last year was a full-on disappointment.

2019 Anaheim Ducks Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/27/2019

The Anaheim Ducks are not very good right now. Not very good at all. And we just aren't used to that. After missing the playoffs last year, the Ducks are in real danger of missing the playoffs for consecutive seasons for the first time since 2001. Stability is what we expect from this team. But they seem to be lost. Randy Carlyle's second stint as head coach of this team ended midseason last year.

2019 Colorado Avalanche Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/27/2019

As a Calgary Flames fan, I know all too well what kind of potential this team has this year. They struggled early on, but rounded into form late, and then absolutely demolished the Flames, who were tops in the West in the regular season, in Round 1. It was ugly. And there is still much room for growth. They have plenty of young talent still to come, and Cale Makar, the young defenseman, will be with the team all year and shined after joining the team in the playoffs last year.

2019 San Jose Sharks Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/27/2019

There was a lot working against the San Jose Sharks last year. Their goaltending was a long way from great, and defender Erik Karlsson, who they paid handsomely to acquire, played only 53 regular-season games. Offensive depth made up for other shortcomings, though, and the team still tallied 101 points. And in the playoffs, things got special.

2019 Edmonton Oilers Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/27/2019

No matter where you grew up, there is that place not too far away from there that you don't like. You know, the rival city. The one where everyone is in-bred, and the libraries don't need books because no one can read. You just plain hate those guys and everything about them. Being born and raised in Calgary, that city for me is Edmonton.

2019 NHL Pacific Division Expert Predictions with Betting Odds and Picks
by Chris Vasile - 9/26/2019

In my honest opinion, the Pacific Division's best chance at winning their first Stanley Cup since 2014 was when the Vegas Golden Knights - an expansion team no less - took the league by storm en route to Game 6 of the Cup Finals, where they ultimately lost to the Washington Capitals. This season, the Pacific is very weak outside of the top three teams, which include the Golden Knights as well as the San Jose Shark and Calgary Flames.

2019 St. Louis Blues Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/26/2019

It was a true storybook season for the St. Louis Blues last year. They perpetually had a team that was good, but not quite good enough. It looked for the first half of the season that they had definitely broken out of that rut, but in the wrong way - they were dead last in the league in January and went through a midseason coaching change.

2019 Nashville Predators Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/26/2019

Last year's season for the Nashville Predators was a weirdly anonymous one. They won the tough Central Division, and they did a lot of things well. But they were underwhelming offensively, they didn't grab a lot of attention despite their success, and they fell to the Stars in the first round of the playoffs without much of a fight. It was a long way from a lousy season, but it still became clear that the team needed to do something to shake things up a little.

2019 NHL Metropolitan Division Expert Predictions with Betting Odds and Picks
by Doc's Sports - 9/25/2019

The Metropolitan Division has been the best and most competitive division (in my opinion) since the league underwent realignment and pushed teams into four divisions instead of the six there were prior. Since 2013, the Metro Division has produced three Stanley Cup Champions (Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017, and Washington in 2018) and three President's Trophy winners (New York in 2015 and Washington back-to-back in 2016 and 2017).

2019 Pittsburgh Penguins Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/25/2019

The Pittsburgh Penguins are only two years removed from winning two straight Stanley Cups, and they have definitely not blown up their core, so they are a long way from irrelevant. But as the last two years have passed, it has felt like the team has gotten a little further away from true relevance. Last year's first-round sweep at the hands of the upstart New York Islanders was a real wakeup call - or at least it needs to be.

2019 NHL Atlantic Division Expert Predictions with Betting Odds and Picks
by Doc's Sports - 9/24/2019

For two consecutive years, the Atlantic Division has played out exactly how most people thought it would -- the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the division with the Bruins and Leafs battling for second and third and meeting in the first round of the postseason. So, how will this season play out? Well, for fans of the NHL who want to see some diversity and parity, the Atlantic Division is not the division for you.

2019 Tampa Bay Lightning Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/24/2019

I have been watching sports for four decades. And in that time, I am not sure that anything has surprised me more than departure of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs - in four games, no less. The squad seemed to have no faults last year, and they won 62 regular-season games, which tied for the most ever in a single season. I picked them to win the Stanley Cup without a moment of hesitation, and I was far from alone in that. It almost felt inevitable - no team was on their level.

2019 Washington Capitals Odds to win Stanley Cup with Expert Predictions
by Trevor Whenham - 9/24/2019

Last year at this time the Washington Capitals were the defending Stanley Cup champions. They were on top of the world. Now they are just a team looking to bounce back from a first-round playoff loss to a wild card team. Things can change in a hurry in this league. Washington needs to find a way to shake off what happened last season and get back on track before age causes their window to close.