Penguins Favored to Win Cup

Even though the Pittsburgh Penguins are still a win away from winning the Eastern Conference, they are Cup favorites. Pittsburgh is -125 to win the Stanley Cup, while the Nashville Predators are +125. Even though the Senators are still alive, they are +1200 and pretty much on life support. But stranger things have happened.

Those who take the Predators now will most likely be getting slightly shorter odds than they will when the Stanley Cup Finals start. But they’ll also get free rooting interest in seeing the Senators win Tuesday night. Nashville will be decent-sized favorites over Ottawa should the Sens make it in.

The Penguins will be favored over Nashville. But they will be larger favorites because they have star power. People have heard of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc Andre-Fleury. The only Forsberg they know is probably Peter and Pekka Rinne isn’t exactly a household name. The Predators took a chance before the season began and traded Shea Weber to Montreal for P.K. Subban and it worked out great for Nashville.

The Predators don’t have any big threats offensively. But they do possess a collection of guys like Ryan Johansen, Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg, who scored 58 to 61 points. They can get points from the defense, with Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis and Subban. That makes them difficult to defend.

The key player will be Rinne, who has battled some injuries the past few years. It wasn’t too long ago he was considered one of the top three to five goalies in the game. If the Predators win, he’ll likely be the Conn Smythe winner, as he’s been brilliant in the playoffs so far. He has a save percentage of .940 and has allowed 1.70 goals per game.

Nashville isn’t the biggest name, but they will provide a good test for Pittsburgh or Ottawa.