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Christopher Boan is a reporter and writer with BetCanada.com. He's covered the gambling industry for nearly a decade, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly, and the Green Valley News.
Top 10 Biggest NHL Disappointments From 2024-25 Season
In the 2023-24 NHL season, the Vancouver Canucks won the Pacific Division title. This season, the Canucks didn’t even make the playoffs.
Heading into the NHL playoffs, BetCanada.com wanted to see which teams were the biggest disappointments, based on preseason over/under points totals at sportsbook operators offering Canada sports betting promo codes. We compared preseason odds to final regular-season results, coming up with the top 10 most disappointing teams based on how much they fell short in betting. Where does Vancouver rank?
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Top 10 Biggest NHL Disappointments
Rank | Team | Under Difference |
1 | Nashville Predators | -31.5 |
2 | Boston Bruins | -23.5 |
3 | New York Rangers | -15.5 |
4 | Chicago Blackhawks | -13.5 |
T5 | New Jersey Devils | -11.5 |
T5 | San Jose Sharks | -11.5 |
T5 | Seattle Kraken | -11.5 |
8 | Pittsburgh Penguins | -10.5 |
T9 | Philadelphia Flyers | -9.5 |
T9 | New York Islanders | -9.5 |
T9 | Vancouver Canucks | -9.5 |
This analysis is part of the Canada sports betting coverage at BetCanada.com. The data is from SportsOddsHistory.com, which pulls its season over/under points numbers from BetMGM Sportsbook.
Canucks Well Short Of Preseason Over/Under
The Canucks fell 9.5 points short of their preseason over/under points total with 90 points, 19 fewer than last season and well under their 99.5 total set as a target for wagering. That tied for ninth on our list of underachieving teams.
Just before the 2024-25 season, Vancouver had odds of +2200 at BetMGM to win the Stanley Cup, tied for 12th in the 32-team league, according to the Sports Odds History website’s data.
That was sixth among Western Conference teams, which would have projected the Canucks into the playoffs. But the season ended sooner than expected and folks wanting to wager on Vancouver Canucks betting odds will have to wait until next season.
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Which NHL Teams Underachieved the Most?
As the NHL’s 16 playoff teams duke it out for on-ice supremacy in the ongoing first round, the other end of the spectrum is topped by the season’s biggest underachievers, the Nashville Predators. They went from a preseason point total over/under of 99.5 to the doldrums of going 30-44-8 (68 points), finishing with the third-fewest points in the 32-team league.
That difference of 31.5 between their preseason over/under and their actual point total put Nashville ahead of (or behind?) another surprising NHL bottom-feeder, the Boston Bruins, who went from a preseason over/under of 99.5 to a 33-39-10 record (76 points) in 2024-25.
The Bruins and Predators were among five teams that reached the playoffs in 2024-24 but failed to do so this season, falling way short of Stanley Cup betting hopes that their backers had.
The New York Rangers (15.5 under their total at 85 points) were third on our list and the Chicago Blackhawks (13.5 under, 61 points) were fourth, not even reaching their low expectations. The New Jersey Devils (91 points), Pittsburgh Penguins (80) and Seattle Kraken (76) each were 11.5 points under – the Devils are the only team on this list that made the playoffs.
As teams such as the Carolina Hurricanes (+600 odds), Winnipeg Jets (+650) and Colorado Avalanche (+700) are atop the Stanley Cup odds board at NorthStar Bets, others are left to sort through the rubble of a hockey season full of NHL betting sorrow. The Predators, Bruins and Rangers found themselves atop that inglorious list in this hockey season.
USA Today photo by Bob Frid