NHL Odds 2018: 10 best bets on over/under win projections

Florida Panthers – Over

Last season: 44-30-8 (96 points)
Over/under: 94.5 points

The Florida Panthers were one of the hottest teams in the NHL at the end of last season. They were outstanding after the All-Star Break, winning 25 of their last 35 games, picking up at least a point in 27 of those games.

Though the Panthers had a rough start under new head coach Bob Boughner, they finished about as strong as a team can hope to finish. They narrowly missed the playoffs, but are clearly going to be challengers to make the postseason entering the 2018-19 season.

Aleksander Barkov is a budding star. He’s not getting talked about as much as he deserves to be talked about. That’s probably going to change in 2018-19 if Barkov can stay healthy and build off his breakout 2017-18 season.

The Panthers have an outstanding top-six forward group. Barkov is easily one of the best centers in the NHL. Vincent Trochek has quietly been one of the most ruthless and efficient centers in the league over the past two seasons.

Jonathan Huberdeau and Evgeny Dadonov are outstanding wings. Nick Bjugstad emerged as a great two-way player. It lacks a little pizzaz, but if Henrik Borgstrom can earn that last forward spot, that’s about as good of a group as you’re going to find outside of Pittsburgh and Toronto.

I’m not sold on their fourth line, especially if Derek MacKenzie and Michael Haley continue to be a part of it, but their third line is good enough. Their defense isn’t great, but they showed a lot of improvement from the start of the 2017-18 season to the finish. All of this adds up to an easy “over” pick. There’s no reason why the Panthers shouldn’t get at least 95 points next season.