The Winnipeg Jets were about two seconds away from being the latest Presidents’ Trophy winner to take a tumble early in the playoffs.
Instead, the Jets won their best-of-seven first-round NHL playoff series by taking Sunday’s Game 7 in overtime, 4-3, over the St. Louis Blues. So BetCanada.com wondered about Winnipeg Jets odds and trends for teams who won Game 7 in overtime to end a first-round series – namely, how far did they go in the playoffs after that?
How Far | No. of times | Pct. As Odds |
Won Stanley Cup | 2 (7.7%) | +1200 |
Lost Stanley Cup final | 6 (23.1%) | +333 |
Lost conference final | 7 (26.9%) | +272 |
Lost second round | 11 (42.3%) | +136 |
The list above only accounts for best-of-seven series since the NHL adopted a 16-team playoff format in the 1979-80 season.
Thanks to Winnipeg’s comeback in Game 7, hockey fans and Canada sports betting customers still have three Canadian teams to wager on among the final eight in the playoffs: The Jets, Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers.
Jets fans will hope that their team can use Sunday’s comeback – the Blues led 3-1 with two minutes left in regulation and the Jets didn’t tie it until 2.2 seconds left in the third – as a springboard for the team’s first Stanley Cup.
If they do so, the Jets would emulate the only two teams to win a best-of-seven first-round series in such a manner and go on to hoist the big prize, thus cashing those Winnipeg tickets for Stanley Cup odds betting.
The 2011 Boston Bruins ousted the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 in Game 7 of the first round and ran the table, surviving three seven-game series in all including the Cup final against the Vancouver Canucks. And the 1989 Calgary Flames outlasted the Canucks 4-3 in OT to clinch their first-round series on their way to the franchise’s only Stanley Cup title to date.
We don’t know if this has predictive significance for customers using Canada sports betting promo codes, but notice the final score of Game 7 overtime for those 2011 Bruins and ’89 Flames. What was Sunday’s winning score for the Jets again? Hmm.
Six other teams have clinched their first-round series with a Game 7 win in OT and gone on to reach the Stanley Cup final before losing, most recently the 2023 Florida Panthers.
Of 26 teams that fit these criteria before the Jets, 18 of them were ousted in either the conference final or in the second round.
The Jets went into the postseason with title odds hovering around +1000. Despite Winnipeg having the league’s best regular-season record and advancing to the second round, those odds have not moved much. As of Monday afternoon, Pinnacle Canada Sportsbook listed Winnipeg at +929 odds, seventh on the board.
How Far | No. of times | Pct. As Odds |
Won Stanley Cup | 11 (23.4%) | +327 |
Lost Stanley Cup final | 8 (17.0%) | +488 |
Lost conference final | 17 (36.2%) | +176 |
Lost second round | 11 (23.4%) | +327 |
For more NHL wagering insight, check out our story about Stanley Cup playoff overtime betting.
We also took a wider view, including teams that won Game 7 in overtime regardless of which round it happened in. As you’d expect, a team that clinches a series in such a fashion deeper into the playoffs has a better chance to win the Stanley Cup. In the chart above, we’re omitting the two times (both by the Detroit Red Wings, in 1950 and 1954) that a team won an OT Game 7 to settle the actual Cup final.
Of the 47 teams to reach the next round by winning Game 7 in overtime of any best-of-seven NHL series, 11 (or 23.4%) went on to win it all. The stats in the tables above are since 1939, the first year that a seventh game went overtime.
Sunday was the first time that Winnipeg (in either franchise iteration) was involved in a Game 7 that went overtime. For NHL betting, live odds did not tilt to the Jets’ favor until the OT began against St. Louis.
In what must be one of the biggest betting oddities one can imagine, the two regular-season conference winners are at the bottom of the odds board. Not only is Winnipeg second to last in Stanley Cup futures betting, but the only team lower is the Washington Capitals (+1036), who led the Eastern Conference in the regular season. For that matter, all four division winners are in the bottom four spots at Pinnacle, including the Pacific Division champion Vegas Golden Knights (+676) and the Atlantic Division’s top seed, the Toronto Maple Leafs (+846).
Check out our story on Presidents’ Trophy trends, which digs into how the Jets had the longest odds before the playoffs for any NHL team that entered the postseason with the NHL’s best record. The last Presidents’ Trophy winner to capture the Stanley Cup was the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013; since then, nine of them lost in either the first or second round.
It seems Winnipeg still has a lot of doubters, but Jets fans sure got their money’s worth with a thrilling Game 7 victory in the first round. We’ll find out more about how good of a betting prop the Jets are at Canada sportsbook apps when they face the Dallas Stars in the second round, starting Wednesday in Winnipeg.
USA Today photo by James Carey
Author
Jim Tomlin is an editor and writer for BetCanada.com specializing in sports, gambling, and the intersection of those industries. He has 30+ years of journalism experience and his work has appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, FanRag, Saturday Down South and Saturday Tradition.
