The NHL season is entering its final stretch, and the Carolina Hurricanes are in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff hunt. Top hockey sportsbooks have multiple futures bets available for the Hurricanes as North Carolina’s lone NHL team loads up for a postseason run at the NHL trade deadline.
Carolina made some big moves this week, acquiring forward Jake Guentzel and defenseman Ty Smith in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Hurricanes are also adding Evgeny Kuznetsov in a trade with the Washington Capitals just ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Below, we’ll take a closer look at the updated Hurricanes odds headed into the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs. You can also check out full NHL playoff odds, as well as regular season NHL game odds.
Best Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup playoff odds
NHL sportsbooks offer a multitude of futures odds on the Stanley Cup playoffs. With the Hurricanes currently in second place in the Metropolitan Division, oddsmakers expect the team to be a factor in the NHL postseason. Here are the best Hurricanes odds available in some of the most popular NHL futures categories.
To win the Metropolitan Division
The Hurricanes were the top team in the Metropolitan Division last season. They’re in second place at the moment, trailing the New York Rangers with a little over a month left to play in the regular season. The two teams will play once before the season ends, but the Hurricanes likely have the easier schedule the rest of the way. Half of Carolina’s final 10 games come against teams with losing records.
To win the Eastern Conference
At the moment, the Hurricanes are just behind the Florida Panthers in Eastern Conference odds, and about even with the Rangers and Boston Bruins. That represents a shift in the Eastern Conference betting odds that came with the Guentzel trade news, bumping the Hurricanes higher on the odds board. Carolina was swept by the Panthers in last season’s Eastern Conference finals. All four games in that series were competitive, with two going to overtime and all four decided by a single goal.
To win the Stanley Cup
The Hurricanes are currently in the top 10 on the Stanley Cup odds board. The team won the Stanley Cup at the end of the 2005-06 season. That win gave North Carolina its first major professional sports championship. Carolina has made the playoffs in each of the last five seasons and advanced as far as the conference finals in two of those seasons (2018-19, 2022-23).
Carolina Hurricanes trade deadline news
The Hurricanes made a major move just prior to Friday’s trade deadline, acquiring Jake Guentzel and Ty Smith in a deal with the Penguins that sent four players and two draft picks to Pittsburgh. Guentzel was widely considered to be the best player on the trade block this season, with several other Eastern Conference teams looking to scoop him up.
The addition of Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov just before the trade deadline on Friday is another big move to bolster the team’s forwards. Adding a veteran center right after picking up Guentzel suggests that Carolina is banking on this being the year it can go all the way after coming up short in the conference finals last season.
The team also signed free agent forward Max Comtois to a one-year deal this week. Last week, the team agreed to take on a $687,500 salary cap hit in exchange for a sixth-round pick as part of a trade deal between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Anaheim Ducks.
The team will have to make some decisions at goalie, with Frederik Andersen nearing a return from his deep-vein thrombosis diagnosis. Along with Antti Raanta, the goaltending of Andersen was pivotal to the team’s playoff run last season, but both players are also now in their mid-thirties. With 24-year-old Pyotr Kochetkov having played well in relief for Carolina these last couple of months, tough choices could be on the horizon.