World Cup of Hockey: Canada Heavily Favored to Win

World Cup of Hockey: Oddsmakers Are Heavily Favoring Team Canada to Win Tournament in Toronto

According to Oddsshark.com, Team Canada is heavily favored to win outright at the upcoming World Cup of Hockey. The pre-tournament is already underway, and official round robin games are set to begin on September 17th.

Team USA is set to host the Canadians on Friday (Sept.9) in Columbus, Ohio in the first game of a home-and-home series that moves to Ottawa, Ontario the next night (Sept.10). These two juggernauts won’t meet again until group play on Thursday, September 20th.

Full odds for the World Cup of Hockey (which tend to vary slightly on sportsbooks) are as follows:

Sep 5, 2016; Ottawa, ON, Canada; Canada goalie Carey Price during practice for the World Cup of Hockey at Canadian Tire Centre. Mandatory Credit: Marc DesRosiers-USA TODAY Sports /

Canada (-105)
Russia (+500)
Sweden (+600)
USA (+600)
Finland (+1100)
North America (+1200)
Czech Republic (+2500)
Europe (+3300)

Unless you’re someone who enjoys playing the sportsbooks, these numbers likely look a little foreign. You don’t need to spend money or place bets to find usefulness in this type of information, though. We can use the numbers to get a clearer picture of how heavily favored the Canadian squad is.

via Pinnacle Sportsbook,

If you bet $110 on a team with American odds of -110 and they win, you will make $100 profit (plus your original $110 stake). If you bet $100 on a team with odds of +120, and they win, this will return $120 profit (plus the original $100 stake).

Using that information, let’s take a look at the top two teams. If you placed a $105 bet on Canada, you stand to make $205. Put down $5 less on Russia ($100), the payout would be $600. That means that Las Vegas believes the Canadians are nearly three times more likely to win than second-ranked Russia; almost four times more likely than USA and Sweden; and about 17 times more likely than eighth-ranked Europe.

Let’s take a quick look at each position for Team Canada to see just how potent this powerhouse hockey nation expects to be:

World Cup of Hockey: Team Canada (Positional Outlook)

Goaltending

The only other team that compares to Canada in terms of depth between the pipes are the Americans. Both of these teams are carrying three elite-tier NHL netminders and are basically in a position where it’s difficult to pick the wrong guy on any given night.

It’s more of three-man debate for Team USA, whereas the Canadians have Braden Holtby and Carey Price squaring off head-to-head. Corey Crawford is expected to serve as the number three.

Both Price and Holtby make up the last two Vezina Trophy winners, with Carey also taking home Hart Trophy honors as well in 2014-15. Caps netminder Braden Holtby was largely considered a candidate for league MVP for much of the 2015-16 season before his play tailed off a bit over the final few months.

One could easily argue that both of these guys rank 1-2 as the top goaltenders in the world, which bodes well for Canada’s chances heading into the World Cup of Hockey.

Defense

Sep 5, 2016; Ottawa, ON, Canada; Canada player Jay Bouwmeester during practice for the World Cup of Hockey at Canadian Tire Centre. Mandatory Credit: Marc DesRosiers-USA TODAY Sports /

Coach Mike Babcock was insistent on having proper left vs. right shot pairings. It’s something we’ve known about the Maple Leafs bench boss for many years, which led to some notable omissions (i.e. Kris Letang).

Regardless, the Canadians feature a star-studded cast of blue liners that features three trios of teammates. Jay Bouwmeester was added to the team joining Alex Pietrangelo. The Sharks top pairing of Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic will also be present. Then we have one of the NHL’s best defensive duos with Los Angeles’ Jake Muzzin and Drew Doughty. Rounding out the group is Montreal’s offseason acquisition Shea Weber.

When chemistry is key at these international tournaments, you’d have to think that it might help having defenders who are this familiar with one another.

Forwards

More from Puck Prose

With 13 of the top 50 point leaders from 2015-16 on the Canadian roster, it easily makes this squad the most offensively potent team in the tournament.

Perhaps the biggest debate will be how the lines should shake-up or which players sit in the press box. Otherwise, Team Canada should have little issue scoring goals.

If the Canadians hope to dominate, they’ll need a complete team effort. It starts at the top with those stars leading on the score sheet and goes all the way down to role players better recognized for their two-way game.

Projecting which players will be among Team Canada’s points leaders: Steven Stamkos, Sidney Crosby, John Tavares, and Tyler Seguin.

Next: Team North America Set to Make Debut

More Than Enough Skill/Talent to Dominate

All in all, there’s more than enough reason to understand why the Canadians are being so heavily favored at the World Cup of Hockey. They’re coming off back-to-back Olympic Gold Medals in 2010 (Vancouver) and 2014 (Sochi) and have an excellent chance to stand atop the hockey world once again.

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