The Stanley Cup playoffs have long been marked by parity. Perhaps more than any other major professional sports league, the NHL routinely sees teams outperform expectations in the regular season, sneak into the playoffs, make a run to the Stanley Cup Final and often even win it. Few teams embody the spirit of this better than the 2005-06 Carolina Hurricanes, who opened that regular season at 60-1 to win the title -- the longest preseason odds of any Cup winner since at least 1984-85. That squad entered the postseason at +600 and exited with the most famous trophy in North American sports. It feels appropriate, then, that, 18 years later, the Hurricanes open the Stanley Cup playoffs as the favorites to lift the Cup but -- at +550 odds at ESPN BET -- also hold the longest odds for any favorite entering the playoffs in the past 40 seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Other books have Carolina as long as +650, meaning its odds as this year's favorite are longer than...