Unfortunately, we were made fools of by the Edmonton Oilers. Failing to win a game, my 4-3 prediction (and bet) was caked at the earliest possible time it could be by the Avalanche. Fortunately, I guessed the Rangers to lose correctly in 6 games, even though I didn't place a bet on that series outcome. This time around, we get blessed with an electric cup finals. Tampa goes for the 3-peat, and the Avalanche go for their first cup in over 2 decades.

Colorado vs Tampa Bay

Predicted Winner: Tampa Bay wins 4-2

Bets taken: Steven Stamkos Conn Smythe Winner (+1500) 0.5 unit

Consider this: Tis the season for unders! There are a lot of key players that have statistics that are trending with poor performance against each other. Nathan MacKinnon in four games over a 3 year span against the Lightning (I know this is a wildly sample size), has around 3.2 shots per game. This makes his under shot line seem pretty attractive (especially if you can get 5.0 shots somewhere like PrizePicks or Underdog). In terms of shots, I think the best performers will be Nikita Kucherov on the Lightning. I think shots are being vastly overcooked on the lines for most players, I would try to opt for unders when possible. Victor Hedman under 2.5 can be a good line most nights, it's very tough for a defenseman to get 3+ shots. Finally, Ondrej Palat has been on a tear, but here is a fair warning that he has been pretty inconsistent in the past. Also if Brayden Point comes back, I would bump his expected production down. The same goes for Corey Perry, who had a nice ride on the first power-play after Point got injured. Before betting on any points line, see how is deployment is first. In the games that they played against each other this year, Vasilevskiy has faced a ton of shots (in the high 30s and low 40s for saves). Kuemper's save number should be fair around mid to high 20s. Gary Bettman has a history of giving the Conn Smythe Trophy to captains, even when I felt that there were better options elsewhere on the team that could have won. Here were the last 6 winners: Crosby (2016 and 2017), Alexander Ovechkin (2018), Ryan O'Reilly (2019), Hedman (2020) and Vasilevskiy (2021). There was a run of 4 captains or eventual captains of the team and then the next two were positional players; a goalie and a defenseman. Stamkos is a long way off points from Kucherov, but keep in mind that Kucherov dominated both playoff years and led with points and did not get the award. Stamkos also has the most goals out of any Lightning (9) and he is bound to find the twine at least 2-5 more times this series, varying how many games it ends up taking.

Series Analysis: This is a tough series to predict. On one hand, part of me knows that the Avalanche have a really good shot at winning this series. Then again, there is the temptation of betting against the Avs for the memes. They touched the Clarence Campbell Bowl, after all. This is notoriously bad luck, because the saying goes "it isn't the trophy you are after". The funny thing about this is that I think Nathan MacKinnon did not want to touch it. Joe Sakic came down and you could tell that he was telling the players to "just touch the trophy". I understand, I am superstitious, but I wouldn't go as far to say that it would put a hex voodoo on you. After all, Sidney Crosby did it almost every year he won the Prince of Wales trophy. He has won 3 cups. But there was something interesting here. If you zoom in on the photo of the trophy with Avs players, you can clearly see Nate in the background. He is not amused; almost scared. Will this make him feel uncomfortable in the series? No one really knows for sure yet. Taking a look at this series, I do see that the Lightning have better goaltending (almost unquestionably) and probably better defense overall, which is why I am going to take them to win the series.