Here are my NHL best bets tonight, featuring my favorite picks and predictions for the Tuesday, March 25, hockey slate.
The NHL odds board features betting options for a packed 12-game slate tonight.
Check out my NHL best bets for Tuesday below, featuring a total, a side, and for a change, a future.
Tonight's battle between the Red Wings and Capitals is arguably the most intriguing matchup on the board as the winner will remain in the final wild-card spot.
Spencer Carbery's Capitals continue to surprise everyone and hang around in the wild-card race. Their offensive production has trended up recently, but — at their core — the Capitals are still a team that looks to win low-event games and lean on Charlie Lindgren' spectacular play in goal.
The Capitals 2.71 goals for per game ranks 27th in the league. Alex Ovechkin has found his form, and youngsters such as Hendrix Lapierre and Ivan Miroshnichenko have come up from Hershey and made a difference. Still, they are a team that can be kept in check offensively with a reasonable defensive performance.
On the defensive side of things, the Capitals' numbers are skewed because of the significant gap in form between Darcy Kuemper and Lindgren. Well, we can essentially lock in Lindgren as the starter here because this is the most important game of the season by a wide margin.
The Red Wings showed that they can hang around in a gritty, playoff-type game in Saturday's 1-0 loss in Nashville. More notable than the way that game went was the fact that Alex Lyon was back to his old ways in goal after a lesser period of play. He has skated to 1.7 GSAx and a .905 save percentage across 36 games and is confirmed as tonight's starter.
I am buying into the idea that this will be a tight-checking, playoff-type atmosphere. Since the Red Wings are typically a pretty high event team, FanDuel is hanging a juiced Under 6.5 (-132). That's too high in this particular spot.
Anything better than -140 is a play for me on Under 6.5.
The Flyers play last week was eye-opening as they went 2-1-1 against the East's best teams. In fact, they looked to be arguably the better side in all four of their games against the Leafs, Hurricanes, Bruins and Panthers.
In their weekend back-to-back, the Flyers owned 62.5% of the high-danger chances (35-21), so the analytics certainly lined up with the "eye-test". If Philadelphia can control a comparable share of the play tonight against another of the East's best, then +158 (FanDuel) projects to be a highly valuable number.
Samuel Ersson should start in goal after Felix Sandstrom's disastrous outing cost the Flyers the game Sunday. Ersson has played to 3.0 GSAx and a .898 save percentage in 42 appearances. He's also performed better in outings where he's had multiple days of rest prior to the game.
The Rangers have displayed improved five-on-five play, despite playing without some key defenders. They will likely add Erik Gustafsson to the list of missing blue-liners, which I'd argue is a bigger absence than oddsmakers seem to be acknowledging as it's coupled with Ryan Lindgren and Jacob Trouba being out.
The Flyers lost the first two meetings between these teams, but clearly gave the Rangers all they could handle. Maybe we run into another trademark performance from Igor Shesterkin, but at +158 it's pretty hard to look past a desperate Flyers team that should go step-for-step with the Rangers at even strength.
Andrew Brunette to Win Coach of the Year (Jack Adams) | +5000 FanDuel
FanDuel looks to be the lone book still hanging Jack Adams Award prices, and I feel Andrew Brunette is mispriced at 50/1.
Rick Tocchet is a worthy favorite, but mainstream NHL media has seemingly already appointed him the winner, which is a scary thought. If the Canucks don't go on to win the Presidents' Trophy, I believe Brunette is way more live than this number suggests.
There's a world in which the Predators, with a reasonable schedule and a game in hand on Vancouver, finish with only seven or eight points fewer than the Canucks. At that point, I'd like to think enough voters would reevaluate whether Tocchet deserves this award over Brunette.
It's clear Brunette is working with less elite talent and — in the true spirit of the award — has likely been the head coach that has made the greatest impact. Brunette has instilled much more in the way of offensive tactics than any other coach in the league, which has lead to the Predators being a surprising offensive powerhouse.
Casual hockey fans might know only three or four forwards on the team, and that's a testament to what Brunette has done.
I also have to give a shoutout to Spencer Carbery, who has done a tremendous job in Washington. If he was still 50/1, you'd be hearing the same take from me.
Take your chances with a little flier on Brunette at +5000.
