Three of these four teams are playoff teams and one of these matchups is a heavyweight battle, which should make for some entertaining hockey. But just because the game will already be entertaining doesn’t mean you can’t up the ante by putting some skin in the game and making some bets.
Moneyline: Tampa Bay Lightning (-140) vs Carolina Hurricanes (+155)
The Carolina Hurricanes are coming off a 6-1 trouncing of the Washington Capitals on the road to improve their away record to 20-10-3. They will take on the Tampa Bay Lightning who are 19-6-4 on home ice and coming off two straight wins allowing only two goals combined. Frederik Andersen got the start and the win against Washington, leaving Antti Raanta to backstop the Hurricanes when they visit Tampa.
Raanta is having a great bounce-back season for Carolina with an 11-4-3 record, a 2.31 goals-against average (GAA), and a .919 save percentage. Martin Necas is heating up for the Hurricanes with two goals and three points in last night’s game and will need to solve likely starter Andrei Vasilevskiy to add to his totals in this one.
The fact that the Lightning are coming off a day’s rest and are waiting for the Hurricanes with their starting goaltender between the pipes makes it a tall ask for the Hurricanes to beat them. With the Hurricanes on the second night of a back-to-back with late travel, this creates a decent valued line for a strong Tampa team and it should be exploited.
Moneyline: Minnesota Wild (-275) vs Philadelphia Flyers (+220)
The line isn’t the best value for the Minnesota Wild considering how big of a favorite they are but they are the likely winner of this matchup. The Wild are still battling for playoff contention so their stakes are higher. They are a deeper team than the Flyers and have been getting much better goaltending with Marc-Andre Fleury and Cam Talbot in the crease.
The Wild have fired off six straight wins against some tough competition and are playing with significant confidence. Mats Zuccarello is coming off a three-assist game against the Colorado Avalanche and Kirill Kaprizov has goals in three straight games. The depth in the Wild’s lineup will cause some problems for a very thin Flyers team that allowed 19 goals in their last four games.
Expected Flyers starter Carter Hart is 13-21-7 with a 3.04 GAA on the season. If you don’t like the value of the moneyline, consider taking the Wild on the points spread to win by 1.5 goals at -110 odds even despite the Wild’s last three games being 3-2 overtime victories.
Odds via BetMGM and Yahoo
