NHL best bets and expert picks
Last night was a wild night in the NHL. If any of you rode that over in the San Jose Sharks/Detroit Red Wings game, you may have seen one of the craziest hits in the history of my gambling career. If you missed it, the score was 0-0 in the second period, then out of nowhere, each team would score four goals of their own in a 10:32 span, securing the over.
Tonight’s action won’t be as crazy, but I’m only going to focus on one of the three games. Let’s take a look.
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Minnesota at Edmonton (-180, 6.5)
Both the Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers have been playing their best stretch of hockey this season. This comes as no surprise since each team recently fired their previous head coach. John Hynes has done wonders for the Minnesota Wild, while the Oilers have found their game under Kris Knoblauch.
Edmonton has now won five straight games in mostly lopsided victories. They have outscored their opponents by a combined 26-6 across those five games. Tonight, they take on a Wild team that was shut out last night by the Vancouver Canucks.
Minnesota is currently on their western Canada road trip, so this will be their third game in the last four nights. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve been playing some strong hockey as of late, winning four of their last five games, but it may have caught up to them.
Connor McDavid has been ridiculous as of late, tallying 16 points in his last five games. Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins have been helping. Hyman has nine points, while Nugent-Hopkins has added five of his own in the same span. Since the start of the Oilers’ winning streak, they’re leading the NHL in scoring, averaging 5.20 goals per game while skating to the league’s best power play at 43.8%.
Not only are they scoring goals, but they’re defending much better as well. Edmonton is only allowing 1.60 goals against per game while skating to a 94.4% success rate on the penalty kill.
I’m not trying to take away any credit from Minnesota; they have been good, but this Oilers team has been on fire.
Starting in goal for the Wild should be Marc-Andre Fleury, considering that Filip Gustavsson played last night. In his last three appearances, Fleury is 1-1-1 with a 4.26 goals against average and a .857 save percentage. The Oilers should light him up.
I expect this one to be all Edmonton.
Bet: Edmonton Oilers to win in regulation -130 (play to -150)
