With the first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs concluded, BetCanada.com wanted to discover which eliminated teams have the bleakest future for next season. This could be useful NHL betting data for the future. Using data from RotoWire.com, EliteProspects.com, and PuckPedia.com, we found the projected cap space, current cap space, amount of returning talent on the rosters, and number of players listed among the top 200 prospects who are expected to move up to the NHL team by 2025 or 2026.
Rank | Team | Avg. Ranking |
1 | Tampa Bay Lightning | 6 |
2 | Ottawa Senators | 5.5 |
3 | Minnesota Wild | 4.75 |
T4 | Los Angeles Kings | 4.5 |
T4 | Colorado Avalanche | 4.5 |
For 15 teams, the Stanley Cup playoffs will end in heartbreak. They’ll be the ones shaking the hands of the team that advances or wins the title and makes those Stanley Cup betting tickets a winner as well. For some of those teams, a playoff loss might be the next step in its development toward becoming a champion, as the Florida Panthers are an example of that from last season.
However, for others, the end of the postseason can also mark the closing of a team’s contention window. Maybe the veteran players are past their prime. Perhaps the team’s front office can’t retain everyone who contributed, and there’s not enough talent in the pipeline to keep success flowing.
This analysis is exclusive to BetCanada.com as part of our Canada sports betting coverage.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, eliminated by the Panthers in the first round for the second year in a row, top this list mainly because of their cap situation and the fact they have just two top prospects. It’s a franchise that has reached the playoffs in 12 of the past 13 seasons. In that time, the Bolts won back-to-back Stanley Cup and went to a third straight. However, the last playoff series they won was the 2022 Eastern Conference final.
That’s not to suggest Tampa Bay won’t compete for the playoffs again next season for backers at Canada sportsbook apps. Hart Trophy finalist Nikita Kucherov shows no signs of slowing. Brayden Point is locked up through the end of the decade, and Andrei Vasilevskiy remains one of the league’s top goaltenders.
However, time catches up with everyone, and it appears time gained ground on the Lightning after they lost their series to the defending Cup champs in five games.
Ottawa might seem like a bit of a headscratcher on this list. After all, the Senators just ended a seven-year playoff drought and played well in a six-game Battle of Ontario series against the Toronto Maple Leafs, which should make Ottawa Senators betting odds intriguing going forward.
On the bright side, the Sens have a very strong young core. Six of their top seven scorers are under 30, and players like Tim Stutzle (team high 79 points), Drake Batherson (68 points), Jake Sanderson (46 assists as a defenseman) and Brady Tkachuk (team high 29 goals despite missing 10 games) all finally have playoff experience under their belts.
The key concerns are the number of pending free agents and limited cap space. The front office must get creative to retain key pieces, such as Claude Giroux, who registered 50 points this season at age 37. The cap situation also might mean the end of the line for D Travis Hamonic and G Anton Forsberg in Canada’s capital.
Injuries threatened the Wild’s playoff chances, but Minnesota got healthy in time to hang on to a wild-card spot in the season’s final week. In the series against Vegas, the Wild did look more like the team that was one of the league’s best before Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Ericksson Ek missed a combined 77 games.
Similar to the Sens, there’s a strong core to build around in Minnesota, and on top of that, the Wild has the deepest prospect pipeline of the eight first-round series losers. The concern again is managing cap space.
Thanks to the way the NHL sets up its playoffs, several Cup-quality teams see their seasons end as May begins.
That was certainly the case for the Kings and Avalanche, two very talented teams bounced by other contenders – the Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars, respectively.
In L.A., the team’s projected salary cap space is just more than $100,000. Adrian Kempe (35 goals, team-high 73 points), Kevin Fiala (35 goals, 60 points), Quinton Byfield (23 goals, 54 points) and Warren Foegele (24 goals, 46 points) are all in their 20s. So is Andrei Kuzmenko (17 points in 22 games), but the forward the Kings picked up from the Philadelphia Flyers at the trade deadline is an unrestricted free agent.
Like Tampa Bay, the Kings, who won Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014, have several older veterans. Anze Kopitar (21 goals, 67 points) and Drew Doughty (17 points in 30 games) have long been the faces of the franchise, but they’re on the backside of their playing careers. The Kings also got a great season from Darcy Kuemper in goal, but he turned 35 on Monday. His primary backup, David Rittich, is 32 and a free agent this summer.
The Avalanche made several changes throughout the season, none bigger than trading Mikko Rantanen to Carolina. The Hurricanes subsequently sent the productive Finn to Dallas, and Rantanen was personally responsible for ending his former team’s season this past weekend.
Nathan MacKinnon (NHL best 84 assists, 116 points) and Cale Makar (30 goals, 92 points as a defenseman) are two of the NHL’s most elite players. But key pieces Brock Nelson (13 points in 19 games) and Jonathan Drouin (37 points in 43 games) are unrestricted free agents. Goaltending might also be an issue.
Also, team captain Gabriel Landeskog (four points in five games) returned for the playoffs after missing the past three seasons. However, unlike the postseason, the regular season requires teams to abide by the salary cap. The Avs, more than $6.1 million in the hole, have the worst projected cap space of any team.
USA Today photo by Marc DesRosiers
Author
Steve is an accomplished, award-winning reporter with more than 20 years of experience covering gaming, sports, politics and business. He has written for the Associated Press, Reuters, The Louisville Courier Journal, The Center Square and numerous other publications. Based in Louisville, Ky., Steve has covered the expansion of sports betting in the U.S. and other gaming matters. He shares his expertise on BetCanada, among other sites.
