Colorado Avalanche vs Edmonton Oilers series prediction: Avalanche will finally reach Stanley Cup final

Colorado hasn't reached a Stanley Cup final since the 2000/01 championship season. Will Jared Bednar's men be able to break their losing streak? We predict that this time the Avalanche will be stronger than Edmonton!

Colorado has been around the Stanley Cup for a few years, but they have stumbled each time in the playoffs against inferior opponents. Last year it was Vegas; before that, it was Dallas, San Jose, and Nashville, and before that, the Denver team had not even made the playoffs. This season, the team was once again called one of the top contenders for the trophy, which they began to prove with the regular season, where they finished with a solid lead in the first place in the East.

In the first round of the playoffs, Jared Bednar's team lost to the unstoppable Nashville, who had an excellent regular season and put up a real fight against Carolina last season. It seemed that now the Predators would offer decent resistance to Colorado, but the first game already disproved these thoughts, as the Avalanche won (7:2). After that dramatic win, the Denver team won three games in a row, taking the series 4:0.

In the Western Conference semi-finals, Colorado had an even stronger opponent. St. Louis proved they shouldn't be written off in the first game. In overtime, the Avalanche were stronger (3:2). Later, the musicians leveled the score in the series (4:1). Jared Bednar's squad won twice more and could have won the fifth game, but the Bluesmen won and brought the series home, where Darren Helm's winning goal in the final minute of regulation time pushed Denver into the conference final.

If Colorado was already among the league favorites before the start of the season, Edmonton's participation in the Western Conference Finals is a big surprise. Yes, the Oilers have the best player in the NHL in Connor McDavid, who Leon Dreisaitl and Evander Kane assist. The Blues and Oranges have never made it far in the playoffs, limiting themselves to the first and second rounds.

Edmonton had a slim chance to make the playoffs, but they even changed their coach in the regular season and didn't manage to make the playoffs. In the first round of the Stanley Cup, the Oilers made it to the decisive seventh game against Los Angeles, and in the critical battle, they managed to play surprisingly well on the defensive end, winning with a score of 2:0.

In the Western Conference semi-finals, Edmonton faced one of the best teams in the regular season, Calgary. Flames won the first game with a score of 9:6, but then the Oilers changed the game, winning four in a row and reaching the third round of the playoffs.

Colorado and Edmonton are both teams that have great offensive players. The Avalanche have many of them, while the Oilers have just two or three players. Moreover, the defensive line of the Denver team is also much more balanced, reliable and skillful than that of the Blue-Orange team, so Jared Bednar's wards are the clear favorites in this game. In addition, they won three of the last four meetings in the regular season. As a result, we have to bet on Colorado winning the series with a handicap (-1.5).

Colorado and Edmonton are playing bright and attacking hockey in the current Stanley Cup, so we can't expect a low-scoring game in the upcoming series, but we can't expect a high-scoring game either. The fact is that both teams have only a short distance left before the playoffs, so the price for mistakes will be too high. We can expect a total under 40.5.

We will see not only two decent teams in terms of skill level but also some incredibly skilled hockey players in the clash between Colorado and Edmonton. Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskug, Mikko Rantanen, Nazem Kadri and Valeri Nichushkin will play for the Avalanche. As for the Oilers, we have Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Evander Kane, who combined for 67 points in the current playoffs. One of them will likely have a shot at a single game, so we suggest betting on the total over 0.5 hat-tricks in this series.

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