It’s a busy Thursday night in the NHL with 12 games on the docket, including a couple featuring teams under a lot of pressure due to slow starts.
We’ll take a look at a couple of those matchups. The Dallas Stars travel to Toronto to play the Maple Leafs, and the Vancouver Canucks go to Minnesota to face the Wild.
Here are our two best bets for Thursday’s NHL slate:
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NHL picks and predictions today
Dallas Stars (+143) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (-170), O/U: 6.5
No city handles the ups and downs of an 82-game regular season quite like Toronto. The Maple Leafs are 2-2 through four contests, but their losses came against the teams that finished 32nd and 31st in the league last season, and their victories came against the young Senators and the unconvincing Capitals. Throw in that the Leafs have already lost their starting goaltender and two key defensemen to injury, and you can see why Rome is starting to burn just a little bit.
While the Leafs are off to an uneven start, all is rosy for the Dallas Stars. Peter DeBoer has won his first three games as head coach in Dallas, and the team’s +10 goal differential (13 GF, 3 GA) stands out as the best mark in the league so far.
A lot of that success can be attributed to Jake Oettinger. The 23-year-old netminder is off to a wonderful start, allowing three goals on 87 shots faced this season. Dallas’ defense is doing a decent job in front of Oettinger, but he’s returned the favor by posting a +4.85 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) through three games.
Oettinger will not start for the Stars on Thursday night, but Dallas does have a capable backup in Scott Wedgewood, who posted a +2.81 GSAx in 37 games for three different teams in 2021-22. Not having Oettinger in the net is a bummer, but the market has seemed to overreact a bit to the news as Dallas moved from +143 to +158. That’s too much, especially since the goaltending battle is basically a wash.
Over the course of the season, the Maple Leafs will likely sort themselves out and put together a stretch of dominant hockey to surge up the standings. But as they sit right now, they’re a vulnerable favorite. The defense is thin, the offense isn’t clicking yet, and the goaltending can’t be trusted. There’s enough in this matchup to feel confident in backing a solid team at +158.
Stars vs. Maple Leafs pick
Dallas Stars +143 (Caesars)
Betting on the NHL?
Vancouver Canucks (+150) vs. Minnesota Wild (-178), O/U: 6.5
One of these teams will get rid of their duck on Thursday night, and even though the odds tell us that Minnesota is far likelier to do so than Vancouver, it’s really hard to be confident enough in the Wild to lay this kind of price with them. .
Over the last half-decade, the Wild have been one of the NHL’s premier defensive units. Minnesota’s roster was never deep enough or talented enough to out-skill teams, so the Wild relied on the defensive structure to grind out games. That just isn’t working this season. Minnesota has allowed 20 goals through the first three games of the season and owns a .813 save percentage. Those numbers will even out some, but it’s hard to be confident in Marc-Andre Fleury right now.
Fleury is on his way to the Hall of Fame, but he’s 37 years old and has been inconsistent at best over the last five seasons. The highs have been splendid, but Fleury is no sure thing to have an above-average season in goal for Minnesota. Strong goaltending is imperative for every team in the NHL, but the Wild don’t have a terribly deep offense so they can’t paper over weak play from their netminder.
The Canucks have their own problems to deal with — they set an NHL record by blowing multi-goal leads to lose their first four games of the season — but Vancouver should have a decided edge in goal with Thatcher Demko slated to start.
And while Minnesota’s offense doesn’t project to be noteworthy, the Canucks have plenty of talent up top to provide some wriggle room for a defense that has spent the first four games chasing the puck.
The Wild deserve to be favorites, but these odds overrate Minnesota’s chances on Thursday night.
Canucks vs. Wild pick
Vancouver Canucks (+150, BetMGM)
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