{"id":541302,"date":"2026-04-05T01:55:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T01:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/541302\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T01:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T01:55:55","slug":"montreals-odds-are-worse-than-ottawas-with-a-better-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/541302\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal\u2019s Odds Are Worse Than Ottawa\u2019s With a Better Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Montreal\u2019s fans have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Habs\/comments\/1sbbxkl\/really_ottawa\/?post_fullname=t3_1sbbxkl&amp;post_index=0&amp;target_user=ProfessorsPressBox\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">every right to be baffled<\/a>. The Montreal Canadiens have ripped off seven straight wins, boast a dazzling goal differential, and sit with a 99.93% chance of making the playoffs. Yet, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/espn\/betting\/story\/_\/id\/44686270\/2025-nhl-stanley-cup-playoffs-championship-odds\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">some corners of the odds board<\/a>, Ottawa is listed at 25-1 odds to win the Cup while the Canadiens are listed at 30-1 odds. <\/p>\n<p>Absurd? On the surface, yes. Look a little closer, and you see the league\u2019s favourite bit of statistical sleight-of-hand: path theory.<\/p>\n<p>Path Theory Sees the Senators Having an Easier Path to the Cup<\/p>\n<p>Path theory (or sometimes called playoff bracket analysis) is delightfully unromantic. It doesn\u2019t argue who\u2019s the better bunch of skaters; it maps who ends up standing across from whom when the puck drops in Round 1. Ottawa, if they slither into a Wild Card spot, probably dodges the heavier artillery in the early rounds. <\/p>\n<p>Montreal, by contrast, would be shoved into a bracket where they meet brimstone and brawny top seeds sooner rather than later. So despite Montreal\u2019s overall superiority, their route to the conference final has a shakier footing on paper.<\/p>\n<p>Reddit Shows Why Fans\u2019 Thoughts Are Always Fun Reads<\/p>\n<p>Reddit, naturally, tore into this with the noisy enthusiasm of a seminar that got out of hand. Someone flagged Ottawa\u2019s expected-goals-for percentage. It\u2019s fourth-best in the league \u2014 and that metric, more than many, has a habit of predicting postseason grit. The Senators\u2019 real issue has been between the pipes: a carousel of goalies until Ullmark returned and calmed the waters. <\/p>\n<p>Throw in injuries that have yanked veteran blueliners out of the lineup, and you\u2019ve got a team that looks ragged but, numerically, has teeth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal\u2019s fans have every right to be baffled. The Montreal Canadiens have ripped off seven straight wins, boast&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,5,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-541302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-montrealcanadiens","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116349618329313373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}