After a long and grueling regular season, 16 teams participate in the NHL Playoffs. Every team needs 16 wins to reach their ultimate goal of winning the Stanley Cup.

The 2022-2023 season culminates with the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The season ends on April 13 and the playoffs are scheduled to begin in April 17.

Here’s your guide to how the Stanley Cup Playoffs work and how you can bet on every NHL playoff game at Pennsylvania online sportsbooks.

Stanley Cup and NHL Playoff Odds

Sixteen teams will compete for the right to call themselves champions. Below, you’ll find futures odds on teams aiming to make the playoffs and live odds for each playoff game once the playoffs begin.

How to bet on NHL playoffs in Pennsylvania 

Pennsylvania has legalized sports betting, and its residents couldn’t be happier. Gone are the days of illegal bookies or sketchy offshore websites. Now, sports betting is live and widely available online. You can bet through your laptop or on your phone through an app. Either way offers great convenience to get in on the action.

Stanley Cup betting through an app offers you the convenience of being able to bet no matter where you are within the state. If you’re on the train home from work, you can place a bet. If you’re at the game, you can place a bet right on your phone. You can watch the playoffs and bet, no matter where you are in the state.

How to Register a New Sportsbook Account

Here’s a step by step process on how to register an account and begin betting on sports in Pennsylvania:

1. Browse this page for odds and offers that interest you. Most sportsbooks offer a signup bonus, promotion, or bonus bets. These are great to get you started in building your bankroll. Once you find an offer that appeals to you, click the link.
2. Register for an account. Create a unique username, set a secure password, and provide any other necessary information such as your birthdate or your email address. If necessary, verify your identity.
3. Download the app of the sportsbook you have chosen. Head over to the App Store on your iPhone or the Google Play store on your Android and find the app associated with the sportsbook you’ve registered for. This allows you to bet on the go anywhere in the state.
4. Claim your bonus bets or other bonuses. Make sure any promotion you’ve signed up with is credited to your account.
5. Deposit. If you need to add money to your account, use any of the available funding methods to increase your bankroll within the sportsbook.
6. Bet! Now you can browse through the odds and place your bet. Make sure to double-check that you’ve confirmed your bet when you place it!

How Do the NHL playoffs Work?

16 teams qualify for the NHL playoffs. The top three teams from each of the four divisions plus the two teams with the next best records from each conference make it to the postseason. In the opening round, the division winners are the top seeds, and they play the wild card teams. The second and third seeds play each other in the other series. The winners of the first-round series then play each other in the second round, and the winners of those series play in the conference finals. The two conference champions play each other in the Stanley Cup Final.

Types of Playoffs/Stanley Cup Bets

The playoffs are the best part of the season for any sport, and that rings true in hockey as well. Every night will feature intense matchups between rival teams as they try to stave off elimination and advance. This means the betting action will also be intense. Here are some ways to get involved in Stanley Cup playoff betting.

• Futures: Future bets are bets made on future events. You can bet on the Stanley Cup before the regular season has even begun or at any point during the season. Futures odds are posted in the offseason, and they are constantly adjusted based on how teams are performing and any big injuries or player transactions. If you have a good feeling about a team, betting them in the futures market can lead to a huge payday.
• Individual game bets: Just because it’s a playoff game does not mean the basic betting strategy of hockey changes. There are still three main markets: moneyline, puck line, and totals. Moneyline betting is simple: just pick the winner. The odds are set based on perceived probability. Puck line betting is the equivalent of spread betting in other sports, except the spread is almost always 1.5. Totals betting speaks for itself. You bet whether the teams will combine to score over or under the number of listed goals.
• Series bets: If you don’t want to deal with the ups and downs of betting every game individually, you can make a series bet. With a series bet, you win as long as you bet on the correct team to advance. It doesn’t matter if it took 7 games or if they swept their opponent.
• Live betting: Live betting has taken the sports betting world by storm, and that also applies to the NHL playoffs. If the underdog scores an early goal, but you still think the favorite will win the game, you can bet their moneyline at better odds than they were before the game. If you miss the opening face-off, it’s not too late to get involved with live betting.

You can find out more about these types of bets and others at our NHL betting page.

Biggest Factors for Playoff Betting

1. Home-ice advantage makes an impact, but that impact is already accounted for in the Stanley Cup odds. Sure, sleeping in your bed is nice, and playing in front of your hometown fans can provide energy, but don’t overvalue home-ice advantage. Road teams win games in the playoffs all the time.
2. Handicap how each goaltender is playing. Playoffs are typically lower scoring games with a lot of tight defense and good checking. If one goalie is playing lights out, his team will feed off that energy, and the other team might start feeling the pressure. On the other side, if a goalie is struggling, he can quickly zap the life out of his team.
3. Coaching matters in the playoffs. Every line matchup becomes more important as teams try to find advantages. If one team has a rookie head coach who is learning on the job, they might not be able to handle adversity. If teams are even, looking at the coaching matchup can help you figure out who will win the game.

Back-to-Back Stanley Cup Champions

Winning one Stanley Cup is already challenging enough, but winning multiple Stanley Cups in a row is a tremendous accomplishment. The Flyers have accomplished this feat once, and the Penguins have done it twice. Here’s a list of teams who have won multiple Cups in a row since the 1967 NHL expansion:

How to Stream/Watch NHL Playoffs in Pennsylvania

The NHL playoffs are available locally in the first round. If the Flyers make the playoffs, NBC Sports Philadelphia will carry the games for the first round. The same thing applies to the Penguins with AT&T SportsNet. You can watch those games by streaming them through either the NBC Sports App or the AT&T SportsNet app. You will need to sign in with cable credentials.

After the first round of the playoffs, the remaining rounds are broadcast nationally on the NBC family of networks. Games are broadcast on NBC, NBC Sports Network, and USA Network. You can stream those games through the NBC Sports App and Peacock App.

Past 10 Years of Stanley Cup Results

Here are the results of the Stanley Cup Final over the past 10 seasons:

What Is the Lowest Seed to Ever Win the Stanley Cup?

The Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup as an 8th seed in 2012. As the last team to qualify from the Western Conference, the Kings eliminated the 1, 2, and 3 seeds in their conference.

They beat the Western Conference Champion and Presidents’ Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks in five games in the first round. The Kings then swept the two seed, St. Louis, in the Conference semi-final. In the Conference Final, Los Angeles made quick work of the third seed, Phoenix Coyotes, eliminating them in five games.

In the Stanley Cup Final, Los Angeles completed the improbable run by beating the New Jersey Devils in six games.

Biggest NHL Playoffs Upsets

1. Los Angeles Kings vs Edmonton Oilers (1982): The Oilers were huge favorites as they had 48 more points than the Kings during the regular season. The Oilers had players like Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, and Grant Fuhr. The opening round series was a best-of-five. Despite winning just 5 of their 40 road games, the Kings won Game 1 in Edmonton by a score of 10-8. In Game 3, the Oilers took a 5-0 lead into the third period. They were openly mocking the Kings. Los Angeles scored five in the third period to force overtime where they won the game. Edmonton won Game 4, but the Kings were not going to quit as they took Game 5 in Edmonton. This is widely known as the “Miracle on Manchester.”
2. Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (2019): The Tampa Bay Lightning had a record-setting regular season, losing just 16 times in regulation during the team’s 82 games. Columbus on the other hand had just clawed its way into the final wild-card spot and were relieved just to make the postseason. However, the Blue Jackets did the dominating as they frustrated the highly talented Lightning and pulled off not just an improbable win, but also a sweep.
3. Edmonton Oilers vs Detroit Red Wings (2006): The Detroit Red Wings were a mini-dynasty at this point, having won multiple Stanley Cups and making many deep playoff runs. They were prohibitive favorites against the 8th seed Oilers due to the talent on their team. Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman, and Brendan Shanahan were all future Hall of Famers in Detroit’s lineup. Edmonton didn’t care as they eliminated the stacked Red Wings in six games thanks to a great goaltending performance from Dwayne Roloson.