It doesn’t get any better in the Stanley Cup playoffs than a Game 7, and we’re already guaranteed two of them tomorrow night as the Boston/Toronto and San Jose/Vegas series go the distance.
The Hurricanes and Predators need victories tonight to try to increase that number to four Game 7s.
We lean to the Hurricanes to get the job done at home (at the time of writing, they’re available at -115 at Bovada, which is 5 cents cheaper than almost everywhere else), but our favourite play on the small board tonight comes on the total in Dallas.
Betting under the total sucks, especially when the total is 5 and you’re cringing every time the puck goes near the net. And we’d love to just sit back and pull for the Stars to finish off the upset without any stress involved. But even with -121 juice on the Under 5, we think there’s more than enough value to pull the trigger — so we will.
Good luck whatever you play, and enjoy what should be a couple more great games tonight!
Odds below are at the time we made the pick.
When the stakes are at their highest in the Stanley Cup playoffs, we often see a huge increase in defensive intensity and a huge decrease in the number of goals. We certainly saw that last night as the Sharks and Golden Knights played to a 2-1 final in double overtime, and it’s worth noting that 11 of the last 12 games in the playoffs have seen at least one of the teams score 2 goals or less.
Now that the Predators are facing elimination with no margin left for error, any chance Nashville has of extending the series will rely on how well the Preds defend. Nashville’s definitely not likely to outscore anyone these days, routinely struggling to even get to 3 goals in a game. The Nashville scoring slump is reaching epic proportions for a team that won its division — scoring 3 goals or less in 16 of its last 17 games, if you throw out one empty-net goal in a win over San Jose. In 8 of those 17 games, the Preds have been held to 2 regulation time goals or less, and they’ve managed 1 regulation time marker or less in 4 of them.
The Stars have relied on defense all year, allowing the second-fewest goals in the NHL this season to overcome an offense that ranked fourth-last. Yes, they’ve potted 5 goals in each of the last 2 games, but those 10 goals came on a combined total of 55 shots — nearly a 20% shooting percentage. That’s obviously not sustainable for a team whose shooting percentage during the season was 8.3% (well under the league average of 9.5%), and we’ll bank on those numbers correcting themselves tonight against an opponent that will be committed to the defensive end of the rink first.
The Under 5 is juiced for a reason, but we don’t think it’s juiced as much as it should be. For that reason, we’ll take a shot at going Under this low total.
Opinion: Hurricanes Moneyline -115 (Bovada)
Good luck!
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