Oilers at Panthers Stanley Cup Final Game 1 odds, expert picks: Florida opens as favorite

After a week-long wait, the 2024 Stanley Cup Final has finally arrived. It all begins on Saturday night (8 p.m ET, ABC) as the Florida Panthers host the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of the series.

For the Panthers, this is relatively familiar territory. They were just here a year ago, eventually losing to the Vegas Golden Knights.

For this Oilers core, this is uncharted territory. They try to not only end Canada’s Stanley Cup drought (going back to Montreal in 1993) but help land Connor McDavid the only thing his resume is missing: a Stanley Cup.

That is going to be the dominant storyline for most of the series, especially at the start. And if the Oilers are actually able to pull this off, it seems like it’s going to have to be on the backs of their top three players (McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard). They have been the driving force behind almost all of this run, as at least one of them has been on the ice for 55 of the Oilers’ 63 goals this postseason. At least two of them have been on the ice for 45 of the goals.

McDavid alone has been on the ice for 42 of them and had a direct hand in 31 of them (five goals, 26 assists).

It’s rare that such a top-heavy team reaches this point, but it is a testament to how dominant the Oilers’ top players are and have been in this year’s playoffs. If McDavid gets his Cup carrying this much of the weight offensively, it will only add to his legend.

Odds are from BetMGM and update live. Buy tickets to see your favorite team on StubHub.

Edmonton Oilers at Florida Panthers  — Game 1

How to watch: 8 p.m. ET on ABC, SN

Series odds: Panthers -130, Oilers +110

• The Oilers might legitimately be having the best special teams postseason performance in NHL history. Their 37.3 percent power play success rate is the second-best all-time for teams with at least 15 games in a single postseason, while their 93.9 percent penalty killing success rate is the best all-time for teams with at least 15 games in a single postseason.
• Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard is just 10 points behind Paul Coffey for the most points in a single postseason for a defender. Coffey had 37 points in 1984-85, while Bouchard enters this series with 27 points.
• Florida Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe has become one of the best big-game players in the playoffs in the past few years. Since the start of the 2021-22 playoffs, his nine postseason game-winning goals are the most in the NHL during that time. No other player in the league during that stretch has more than six game-winning goals.
• McDavid is going to get a big challenge in this series going against Aleksander Barkov. In the first three rounds, Nikita Kucherov, David Pastrnak and Artemi Panarin played 85 minutes of even-strength hockey against Barkov’s line and combined to score exactly one goal between the three of them in those minutes.
• Neither starting goalie — Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky or Edmonton’s Stuart Skinner — has been especially dominant at any point in this postseason. Bobrovsky’s .908 save percentage is fourth out of nine goalies with at least six appearances this postseason, while Skinner’s .897 is seventh out of that group. Given the strength of both offenses, this has the potential to be a high-scoring series.

Expert picks for Oilers at Panthers

Picks standings

(Photo of Connor McDavid and Stuart Skinner: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)