2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs: A Late Arrival's Predictions
A lost futures ticket, a position that has appreciated, and why the Western gauntlet sets up Tampa perfectly.
I Missed the Season Preview. Here’s Why.
JPM Picks didn’t launch on Substack until February.
That means I don’t have a full season preview to point back to. No preseason takes on record, no bold predictions from October that I can either crow about or quietly bury. I watched the season, I followed it, I had opinions. I just didn’t have a place to publish them yet.
What I do have is a lost futures ticket and a December receipt that is very much alive and, as it turns out, worth more today than the day I bought it. We will get to both.
The NHL playoffs are underway. Are you as excited as I am?
Quick note: Everything on JPM Picks is Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice, not gambling advice. Bet responsibly, keep it fun, and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
The Defending Champs Aren’t Here
Florida won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025, beating Edmonton both times. Then Aleksander Barkov tore his ACL and MCL in the preseason and missed every game of the regular season. Matthew Tkachuk had offseason surgery and didn’t return until January. By then it was too late.
The Panthers finished 15 points out of a playoff spot. That is how fast things move in the NHL. Two straight championships, one catastrophic injury to your captain, and you are watching the playoffs at home. Keep that in mind as you size up every team in this bracket. Depth matters, health matters, and it can all unravel faster than anyone expects.
Colorado Is the Favorite. I Had a Ticket at +850. I Think I Threw It Away.
Back on October 16th, I posted a screenshot on my X account of my futures ticket for the Colorado Avalanche to win the Stanley Cup. The price was +850.
That ticket is gone. I have looked everywhere and I am fairly certain it ended up in the trash at some point between October and now, which is the kind of thing that keeps a sports bettor up at night for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual game. For the record, I now have a special place for futures tickets instead of leaving them randomly on counters around my home.
So here is where I am at: I am only rooting for Colorado if that ticket somehow surfaces. Until then, I am evaluating them like any other team in this bracket.
Here is my honest evaluation. I am not a hockey guru, but they are the best team in the field. Nathan MacKinnon led the NHL with 53 goals. Cale Makar was, well, Cale Makar. They added Nazem Kadri back at the trade deadline for a reunion with the 2022 championship core. They were first in goals scored and first in goals allowed. On paper, this team is built to win.
The market agrees. Colorado sits at +290 on my board, the best odds to win. Now here is the problem with that number. Since 1985-86, 39 teams have finished with the NHL’s best regular season record. Only eight of them went on to win the Stanley Cup. An equal number of those Presidents’ Trophy winners lost in the opening round. The curse is documented, it is consistent, and it makes logical sense: the team that runs the hardest all regular season draws maximum attention from every opponent, carries the most wear, and faces the highest expectations when anything goes sideways in a seven-game series.
Am I telling you to fade Colorado entirely? Absolutely not. They draw the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1, a team that had fewer points than four clubs that didn’t even make the playoffs. That series is as favorable a bracket draw as it gets. But +290 on a historically cursed position, with no personal ticket riding on it anymore, is not where I am putting my money. The market is pricing Colorado like the Cup is already engraved. Forty years of history says pump the brakes.
The West Is a Gauntlet. That Is the Whole Point.
I have probably watched more Western Conference hockey this season than Eastern. I cannot fully explain it. The matchups pulled me that direction and I went with them.
What I know is that when I look at this bracket, the talent concentration in the West is unlike anything in the East. Colorado. Vegas. Edmonton. Dallas. Minnesota. Five teams that could each make a legitimate case for the conference title. To win the Western Conference in 2026, you are going to have to beat the best collection of teams in the bracket, probably over four brutal rounds.
The team that survives that is going to be the most battle-tested club in hockey. And the team waiting for them on the other side of the bracket is Tampa Bay at +400, with the best goalie in the field and the best offensive player in the Eastern Conference.
That is the setup. Keep it in mind as we go through the rest of this.
The Matchup That Could Be a Western Conference Final
Dallas finished third in the entire league with 112 points. Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston both scored 45 goals. Mikko Rantanen finished at 1.20 points per game. The Stars have been to the Western Conference finals three consecutive years and they know how to win when it matters.
Minnesota made the biggest midseason trade of the year by acquiring Quinn Hughes from Vancouver in December. The Wild then went 17-5-5 before the Olympic break. Kirill Kaprizov scored 45 goals. Matt Boldy had 42 right behind him. Hughes transforms what a defense can do offensively and the Wild are built around two elite scoring wingers who can take over any game they play.
The NHL’s division-based playoff structure put the third-best team in the league against the seventh-best team in the first round. If this were a traditional bracket, this matchup could be a Western Conference Final. Instead, one of these teams is going home before the second round even begins.
That is not a great format argument, but it is a great television argument. This is the most interesting first-round matchup in the bracket, and it is happening right now instead of in May where it belongs.
Minnesota leads the series 1-0 after Game 1. Watch this one closely. Both teams deserve better than a first-round exit.
The Dark Horse: Minnesota Wild at +1500
Full transparency, because that is what JPM Picks is built on.
I have a futures ticket on the Minnesota Wild to win the Stanley Cup. I bought it back in December at +2490. That ticket is alive and I know exactly where it is.
Here is where it gets interesting from a JPM Picks standpoint. That ticket has appreciated in value. In December, the market was pricing Minnesota at +2490. Today, the same bet only yields +1500. The implied probability has moved in my favor, which means the position I am holding is worth more now than the day I bought it. If you follow the options content on this Substack, you already understand what that means: I am sitting on a ticket with built-in edge versus current market pricing. The market has moved toward my strike. That is intrinsic value, and it is the same concept whether the underlying position is a stock or a sportsbook slip.
There is also a personal connection here beyond the ticket. Minnesota is geographically closer to JPM Picks HQ than any other team in this bracket. The company my wife works for happens to be a Wild sponsor, which means there is a household stake in this pick that goes well beyond whatever is printed on that December receipt.
None of that changes whether they are a good bet. But you deserve to know where I am sitting before I make the case.
Here is the case: the Wild are built around two of the best wingers in the league in Kaprizov and Boldy, with Quinn Hughes running a defense that can generate offense from the back end in a way Minnesota has never had before. They are hot, they are deep, and at +1500 the market is treating them like a team that got lucky to be there.
They drew Dallas in Round 1, which is a brutal first-round matchup. Game 1 went to Minnesota. If they get through it, they are dangerous. And if they somehow navigate the Western gauntlet, a Wild championship would be one of the better stories this sport has produced in years.
+1500 with a ticket already appreciating in my pocket and the whole house invested. That is the dark horse pick.
A Note on Edmonton
The Oilers are the team I rooted for the past two seasons. Connor McDavid finished the regular season with 138 points, leading the entire league. Leon Draisaitl has been dealing with a lower body injury and, according to ESPN, should return to the lineup sometime in the opening round of the playoffs.
That distinction matters. Edmonton with Draisaitl is a different team than Edmonton without him. They have been to two straight Stanley Cup Finals. They know how to win in the postseason when both stars are healthy and locked in. If Draisaitl comes back early in the first round, do not sleep on the Oilers.
The question is whether the defense and goaltending are good enough to carry them when the other 58 minutes are not McDavid and Draisaitl at full speed. That has been the concern all season. It does not go away in April.
The Vegas Story Nobody Is Leading With
Vegas fired head coach Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season and hired John Tortorella. Then they went 7-0-1. Carter Hart returned from injury and went 6-0-0 with a 1.66 goals-against average. Jack Eichel had 11 points in his last six games.
The Golden Knights are at +1000 on my board. A team playing its best hockey of the season heading into the playoffs, with Mitch Marner, with Jack Eichel, and with a coaching staff running on adrenaline with something to prove. They open against Utah, which is a winnable series.
I am not making them my Cup pick. But I am watching that price.
The Cup Pick: Tampa Bay Lightning at +400
Let me walk you through the Eastern bracket, because the path matters as much as the pick.
Tampa Bay faces Montreal in Round 1. Nikita Kucherov led the entire NHL with a 1.71 points-per-game average. Andrei Vasilevskiy led the league in wins and is the frontrunner for his second Vezina Trophy. Victor Hedman is not on the injury report as of this writing, which removes the one significant question mark that had me hedging on the Lightning earlier in the week. This is a complete, championship-caliber roster.
Montreal has a genuinely elite line in Caufield, Suzuki and Slafkovsky. But Tampa has the best goalie in this field. That series goes to the Lightning.
Round 2 in the East brings either Buffalo or Boston. Buffalo broke a 14-year playoff drought and the building in round one is electric. Boston is well-coached and has Jeremy Swayman in net. I think Tampa handles whoever comes out of that series. Kucherov against either of those defenses is a significant advantage, and Vasilevskiy in a seven-game series is a different variable than anything you face in the regular season.
Then there is Carolina, third favorite at +470 to win the Cup. Carolina leads Ottawa 1-0 after Game 1. Rod Brind’Amour has his deepest scoring roster in eight years behind that bench. The case for the Hurricanes on paper is real. But there is a pattern here that is hard to ignore: Carolina gets seeded high, the bracket opens up, expectations rise, and then something goes sideways. The goaltending situation heading into these playoffs is genuinely unsettled. When your biggest question mark is in net and you are a top seed, that is a difficult combination in a one-loss-and-you-examine-everything playoff environment.
Tampa beats Carolina in the Eastern Conference Final.
One more reason to like the Lightning that has nothing to do with analytics. Head coach Jon Cooper spent two seasons coaching the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers from 2008 to 2010. In his final season, he brought home the Clark Cup, the USHL championship. Green Bay is my hometown. I have been to more than a few Gamblers games through the years. Cooper took a winner out of Wisconsin before he built a dynasty in Tampa, and I am not going to pretend that does not matter at least a little.
That sets up the Lightning, with championship pedigree and the best goalie in the field, against whoever survives what is shaping up to be one of the most competitive Western conferences in recent memory.
Tampa Bay Lightning, +400. Written down before the puck dropped on Game 1.
One More Series Worth Watching
Philadelphia leads Pittsburgh 1-0 after Game 1. The Flyers are young, they have Trevor Zegras back and playing well, and Dan Vladar in net has been one of the quiet stories of the season. The Penguins have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin looking for one more run together. This series has enough history and enough desperation on both sides to be appointment viewing. Do not sleep on Philadelphia.
The JPM Take
Colorado is the best team in this field and the Presidents’ Trophy curse deserves real respect at +290. I had a ticket on them at +850 in October. It is gone and I have accepted that.
The West is a gauntlet. Colorado, Vegas, Edmonton, Dallas, and Minnesota are going to beat each other up for two months. The team that comes out of that is going to be tested in ways the Eastern Conference bracket simply cannot match. That is not a knock on the East. That is a compliment to the West.
Tampa Bay at +400 is built to beat that team. Kucherov, Vasilevskiy, Hedman healthy, and a coaching staff that has been to this stage before. The Lightning run the East, they beat Carolina in the conference final, and they are waiting in June for whoever crawls out of the Western gauntlet.
Minnesota at +1500 is the dark horse with a personal stake attached. The ticket is appreciating, the household is invested, and the Wild just took Game 1 from Dallas. If they get through this series, the story gets very interesting very fast.
Enjoy the playoffs.
Do you have a futures ticket still alive in this field? Hit reply and tell me which team. I want to know I am not the only one sitting on a slip from October that I cannot find.
This is JPM Picks. Just Paper Money, for entertainment and educational purposes only. Not financial advice. Not gambling advice. Always bet responsibly and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
