Top NHL Betting Picks for Tuesday, June 8 (2021)
The second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs continues with a potential elimination game on tap parlayed with Game 5 of a Western Division series knotted at 2-2. While these games have been anything but predictable, below, we’ll analyze two bets that we hope come to fruition.
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Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook
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Tampa Bay Lightning (-120) vs. Carolina Hurricanes (+103)
The Carolina Hurricanes enter tonight facing a 3-1 series deficit to the defending Stanley Cup Champions. Already facing an uphill battle, they’ll remain without leading scorers Vincent Trocheck, and Nino Niederreiter as both remain out due to injury.
Unlike games one through three, Game 4 was a high-scoring affair as these two teams combined for eight goals in the second period.
At one point midway through the second frame, the ‘Canes held a 4-2 lead. However, undisciplined play continues to plague this team as they allowed the Bolts to score two power-play goals and take the lead late in the period.
Pointing out the obvious, this Hurricanes team would do themselves a favor by staying out of the box, as the Lighting are executing at an insane 41.2% success rate this postseason.
Apart from special teams, Tampa Bay will be fully healthy with zero players listed on the injury report. Yikes.
In a lose or go home scenario, we can anticipate the Hurricanes to come out flying in front of the raucous home crowd. One big question will be who is in goal – as Petr Mrazek replaced rookie sensation Alex Nedelijkovic in the starter’s crease last game, which wasn’t pretty.
If there is good news for this hobbled squad, it’s that they’ve largely kept pace with this Lightning team 5v5.
Below we’ll look beyond the surface and analyze the series metrics 5v5 from games one through four.
Number’s courtesy of Natural Stat Trick:
- CF%: 47.75 (TB) 52.25 (CAR)
- SF%: 47.78 (TB) 52.22 (CAR)
- xGF: 6.9 (TB) 6.75 (CAR)
- xGF%: 50.55 (TB) 49.45 (CAR)
The above advanced statistics tell us the two teams are closer than the series score would indicate. Reaffirming the notion of penalties being Carolina’s Achilles heel.
Another roadblock facing the home team tonight is goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy – the Vezina Trophy favorite and owner of a .928 SV% and 2.8 GSAA in the playoffs.
If the Hurricanes are going to extend this series, I believe they will have to play high-event hockey like Game 4 when they made Vasilevskiy look mortal.
However, I think this Lightning team will be too much to overcome between their deadly power play, forward depth, and goaltending.
Betting Picks: Tampa Bay Lightning (-120) & Over 5.5 (+110)
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Jordan Anderson is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Jordan, check out his archive and follow him on Twitter @Jordan_A03.