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Hello all you NHL bettors out there, and happy Friday! Congrats on making it through another work week, what awaits you is MLB, the NBA, The Masters and on top of that, the NHL! It’s crunch time around the league as most teams only have around 10 games left in the season and with some playoff spots still up in the air, it should be a fun stretch. Smaller slate this evening with five games but I have still spotted a couple of bets worth looking at, let’s get to it.
Records to Date:
Record: 81-56
Units +20.27
Buffalo Sabres @ Florida Panthers 7PM ET, ESPN+
You would be hard-pressed to find a more impressive and entertaining team than the Florida Panthers this season. From their league’s best offense to loading up at the trade deadline, this year this team is legit. Tonight, they will host the Buffalo Sabres in a game that favors the Panthers HEAVILY; -475 on the Money Line to be exact. That is an outrageous number that I can’t touch as it’s not even worth the price of admission. So instead, I will hit the Puck Line of -1.5. Still going to be juicy laying -170 over at PointsBet, but with a short slate, there are fewer options and you could do worse than Florida at home. The Panthers are 29-6-0 on home ice this season, which stands as one of the best marks in the NHL. On the betting side, the Panthers aren’t as dominant ATS, but they remain 20-15 against the number and that’s a hit rate of over 57%. The Panthers are almost fully healthy heading down the stretch too which means the play should not drop even though they have locked up a playoff spot. One last stat for the Panthers tonight, they are first in the NHL in Corsi For at 56.9%, which indicates complete dominance at even strength and that is important considering their opponent tonight.
The visitors this evening will be the Sabres who come in having played a hard-fought game yesterday against the Carolina Hurricanes. They will be traveling on short rest which is also a red flag when betting in the NHL; and considering their competition in Florida, it’s not a good situation for the Sabres. Buffalo is 12-18-5 on the road this season and has an ATS mark of 19-16 on the betting side. It also allows 3.5 goals against per game on the year (the sixth-highest rate in the league) and against a high-octane Panther offense, that stat could mark big trouble. Circling back on the Corsi metric to finish up, the Sabres sit at 47.5% and that number is good for the 10th-worst mark in the NHL. Lots of chalk on this one tonight, but I don’t see any way to fade the Panthers off the betting card tonight.
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Valeri Nichushkin, Avalanche Player Prop 7PM ET, ESPN+
Through three years of writing about NHL betting, I don’t think I ever had writing up a Nichushkin player prop in mind, but it’s early April and here we are. He may not be a household name, but Nichushkin has become an integral part of the league’s best team in Colorado. In the absence of Gabriel Landeskog and Nazem Kadri, the Colorado winger has found himself on the second line, and from his stats, he is taking full advantage. Nichushkin has now topped his prop line of 2.5 shots on goal eight times in the past 10 games while averaging 3.4 shots during that stretch. That should put the line at -175 to -250 depending on the opponent, but the sportsbooks are staying steady at -125 to -130 and that creates tremendous value for the prop bettor. He is on the ice a ton more recently as well. In the month of March, he averaged over 20:30 minutes of total ice time, which is a huge bump from the usual 17 minutes he was logging most of the season. It may seem silly, but you must be on the ice to register shots on goal and he is getting more opportunities than ever before.
Should be a prime matchup against the Jets as well given their track record of poor defense this season. The Jets allow 32.9 shots on goal per game, which is the eighth-highest rate in the NHL. One last note and it’s the cherry on top: Nichushkin skates with Colorado’s top power-play unit right now and being on the man advantage of one of the league’s best power plays is a great opportunity to pad the stats.
The Picks
Florida Panthers -1.5 (-170 on PointsBet)
Valeri Nichushkin Over 2.5 Shots on Goal (-125 on DraftKings)
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