The ice is shifting

Happy Wednesday! And somehow, the NHL season is already about 8% finished. 🤯 After all 32 teams hit the ice during Tuesday night’s “Frozen Frenzy”, we finally have enough hockey to assess how preseason expectations are starting to shift around — so let’s check in on the biggest risers and fallers in the Stanley Cup market below. Plus, the Rays struck back in Game 2 of the ALCS while the Brewers can shove the Dodgers into an unthinkable 3-0 NLCS hole tonight. (Shohei Ohtani WILL be in the lineup, for what it’s worth.) We’ll look at how often LCS underdogs ultimately pull off the upset from different series states. And another loaded Champions League slate today features Manchester City-PSG — a couple of controversial big-spenders — and Roma-Real Madrid. Here’s what else we’re watching on the sports schedule:

The Main Events

All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game

MLB:
⚾ NLCS: Brewers (38%) at Dodgers (62%) - Game 3 (MIL leads 2-0), 8 p.m. (FS1 / FOX ONE)
⚾🏆 World Series title check-in: Brewers 45% to win 

NHL:
🏒 Canadiens (46%) at Capitals (54%) - 7:30 p.m.
🏒 Stars (42%) at Avalanche (58%) - 8:30 p.m. (TNT) - Rare home-and-home back-to-back; COL won 3-2 yesterday
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Avalanche/Panthers 12% to win

Football:
🏈 CFB: Kennesaw State (59%) at Missouri State (41%) - 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
🏈 CFB: Western Kentucky (53%) at Sam Houston (47%) - 8 p.m. (ESPN)
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 15% to win NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 21% to win national title 

WNBA:
🏀 No games. (Off-day; Dream-Valkyries Finals begins Sat., Oct. 17)
🏀🏆 WNBA title check-in: Valkyries 52% to win 

Soccer:
⚽ Champions League: Feyenoord (29%) vs. Como (46%) - 12:45 p.m. (Paramount+)
⚽ Champions League: LASK (12%) vs. Liverpool (72%) - 12:45 p.m. (Paramount+)
⚽ Champions League: AS Roma (26%) vs. Real Madrid (50%) - 3 p.m. (Paramount+)
⚽ Champions League: Manchester City (47%) vs. Paris Saint-Germain (30%) - 3 p.m. (Paramount+) - the Financial Fair Play cup!
⚽🏆 Champions League title check-in: FC Barcelona 28% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 64% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Vancouver Whitecaps FC 20% to win MLS Cup
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Gotham/Washington 28% to win

NBA:
🏀 Preseason action (regular season starts 10/20)
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Thunder 25% to win

Frozen Frenzy!

As the baseball playoffs were pressing onward Tuesday, hockey crept toward center stage as well with wall-to-wall coverage on ESPN. Dubbed the “Frozen Frenzy”, the evening slate featured every single NHL team in action, at the same time, for a grand total of 16 games — just the seventh time in NHL history that 16 separate games were played on the same day:

With every team having now played an average of 6.6 games apiece, the 2026-27 NHL season is now roughly 8% complete, even though it feels like we were just talking about opening night a few days ago. What’s changed since then? Here’s a look at each team’s change in Stanley Cup prediction-market odds versus their change in the Elo ratings ever since before the season began:

Among the biggest gainers have been our two Cup Finalists from a year ago — Carolina and Vegas — who’ve picked up where they left off with 12 combined wins versus just 4 losses. Joining them in the top-right quadrant are the Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild, whose goalies (Jeremy Swayman and Jesper Wallstedt) have been the elite of the elite to start the year… and the New York Rangers, whose goalie (Igor Shesterkin) was just lost for the season with a knee injury. We’ll have to see if backup Dylan Garand can continue picking up the slack; he currently ranks 6th with +4.8 goals saved above average.

The Utah Mammoth (5-2, +1.14 goal diff. per game) are also still on the rise in the Cup odds — and it’s interesting that the Tampa Bay Lightning are as well, but the Seattle Kraken and Edmonton Oilers are not, despite all three having similar records and the latter two looking much stronger on goal differential. And the Toronto Maple Leafs have actually dropped in the Cup odds despite a respectable +0.14 GD/game — though they are admittedly going to be in a playoff dogfight as they were for a lot of last season as well.

And the once-and-maybe-future-dynasty Florida Panthers remain a mystery. Their Elo has barely budged to start the year, and though they’ve been slightly below-water on W-L record and goal differential, Matthew Tkachuk is playing great and his brother Brady is scoring goals, while new goalie Jacob Markström was playing well before a recent injury. Perhaps the market was simply expecting Florida to come out and dominate, but they’re still among the East favorites and can’t really be fairly judged until playoff time.

On the other side of things, we’ve seen the market move against the Philadelphia Flyers — understandable — but also more theoretically promising teams like the Sharks, Canadiens, Devils and Sabres. In spite of their young cores and hopes for improvement in ‘26-27, that quartet has started the year with a combined W-L record of 12-13 and they’ve been collectively outscored 93-70 despite the strong early play of Macklin Celebrini, Nick Suzuki, Jack Hughes and Owen Power. And while the Dallas Stars have a bit of a different narrative from those other teams, they’ve also seen a dip in the odds through an uneven start and the usual injuries.

It’s still early, of course, and there’s plenty of time for all of these trends to reverse themselves. But if nothing else, Tuesday’s flurry of games served as a reminder that the NHL season moves faster than you think.

The cost of a loss

Going into Tuesday night’s MLB postseason action, the Cleveland Guardians had a chance to join the Milwaukee Brewers as surprising pre-series underdogs suddenly up 2-0 in the LCS. According to the indispensable SportsOddsHistory, only once since the LCS went to best-of-7 in 1985 did both underdogs take 2-0 leads — 2015, when both the Mets and Royals surprised the Cubs and Blue Jays, respectively. Cleveland’s chance to put 2026 in that category went awry, however, as the top-seeded Tampa Bay Rays stifled them behind a gem from starter Freddy Peralta. As a result, the Guardians are staring at a very different underdog reality than the Brewers: While teams up 2-0 knock off the favorites 81% of the time, always at least taking the series to 7 games, those tied 1-1 only pull the upset 43% of the time, most often losing in 6 games from here.

What else we’re reading

Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.

⚾ “Rays, Brewers always outperform expectations. These ‘Moneyball’-like edges are the key” by Eno Sarris
⚾ “Can David Still Beat Goliath?” by Ben Carloni
🏈 “CFB teams that are circling the drain” by Brendan Farrell
🏀 “A Random, Interesting Q&A with Nick Greene” by Chris Gunther
⛳ “Navigating the nuance of LIV’s bankruptcy” by Bob Harig

Next on deck…

Thursday (10/15)
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Seahawks at Broncos
🏈 CFB: East Carolina at UAB
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Rays at Guardians, ALCS Game 3
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Brewers at Dodgers, NLCS Game 4 🚨
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day)
🏒 NHL: Rangers at Devils
⚽ UEFA Europa League: AC Milan at Red Bull Salzburg

Friday (10/16)
🏈 CFB: Memphis at Tulane
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Rays at Guardians, ALCS Game 4 🚨
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Brewers at Dodgers, NLCS Game 5 (if necessary) 🚨
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day)
🏒 NHL: Penguins at Avalanche
⚽ Soccer: Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Köln

Saturday (10/17)
🏈 CFB: #4 Ohio State at #5 Indiana
🏈 CFB: #2 Notre Dame at #8 BYU
🏈 CFB: #13 Missouri at #9 Ole Miss
🏈 CFB: #6 Alabama at #14 Tennessee
🏈 CFB: #16 Mississippi State at #22 LSU
🏈 CFB: #18 Oklahoma State at #20 Houston
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Rays at Guardians, ALCS Game 5
🏀🏆 WNBA Playoffs: Dream at Valkyries, WNBA Finals Game 1
🏒 NHL: Hurricanes at Jets
⚽ Premier League: Liverpool at Brentford