NHL Atlantic Division Odds: Who is the Team to Beat?

We’re on the doorstep of the start of the 2026-27 NHL season, with puck drop for the league’s opening games set for Tuesday night. 

Right now is a good time to take one last look at the division odds before the season begins. 

No division in the league may be as consequential as the Atlantic Division. Four Atlantic teams will likely be featured prominently in the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring: Florida, Buffalo, Tampa, and Montreal. 

But beyond those teams are a few scrappy teams who’ll likely cause some trouble for the four favorites. 

Here’s a look at how those odds are looking as of September 28. 

NHL Atlantic Division Odds

NHL Atlantic Division Favorite

When the Florida Panthers travel over to Raleigh for the league’s opening game on Tuesday night, they’ll be the favorites to win their division with +160 odds. 

Florida is also favored over the defending champ Carolina Hurricanes — who they’ll play on opening night — to win the Stanley Cup, with +650 odds. For reference, Carolina has +750 odds to go back-to-back. 

The Panthers missed the playoffs last season, finishing the year with a 40-38-4. You can easily blame that on the accumulation of playing time after three straight trips to the Cup Finals — they lost the first one to the Golden Knights, then won the next two. 

But if you thought there were some larger problems with the team last year, maybe because of their -25 goal differential, Florida’s taken steps to address them. 

Their biggest move was acquiring forward Brady Tkachuk in a trade with the Ottawa Senators prior to the start of free agency. Tkachuk is an obvious match for the team culture that was created in part by his older brother. 

He gives them another feisty forward with some greater scoring capability; Tkachuk had more than 20 goals in each of the past two seasons. 

Their second biggest move was letting longtime goalie and multi-time Vezina winner, Sergei Bobrovsky, walk in free agency. Before the 38-year-old signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida acquired Jacob Markstrom from the New Jersey Devils. 

Markstrom is not an elite goalie who could match Bobrovsky’s peak production, but he will fill the shoes of the diminished performance they got out of Bob last season. Ultimately, they’ve gotten worse in net but with the other pieces of the roster it shouldn’t matter much. 

If you’re a worried Panthers fan, I guess you could hang your hat on the lingering rumors surrounding a move to trade for Connor Hellebuyck. But don’t get too excited about it just yet.

Florida is a good pick for preseason favorites. They have the pedigree, have a few areas of improvement on the roster, and are, maybe most importantly, more rested going into this season than they’ve been in recent years. 

Still, I think you can’t count out the teams below them on this early odds ranking. Tampa, Buffalo, Montreal, or even Toronto will all be heard from this season.