Top NHL Betting Picks For Tuesday, March 22nd (2022)
Wow, what a trade deadline in the NHL. All in all, 49 trades took place over the last week including a remarkable 31 yesterday alone.
Tampa Bay brought in Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul to help recreate the third line that helped them win back-to-back Stanley Cups. Pittsburgh is giving it one more run with this core group, and they brought in Ricard Rakell to bolster the top six. The Rangers may be ahead of schedule, but that didn’t stop them from rounding out their middle six with acquisitions of Frank Vatrano, Tyler Motte, Andrew Copp, and Justin Braun on the blue line. And finally, Florida brought in Claude Giroux and Ben Chiarot, two players with Cup Final experience, to help the Cats reach a Final of their own.
Out west, the Cup-favorite Avalanche strengthened their title hopes by adding Andrew Cogliano and Artturi Lehkonen while the Blues added Nick Leddy to their blue line, and in perhaps the most eye-catching deal of the day – Marc-Andre Fleury waived his no-trade clause to join the Minnesota Wild. Wild, indeed.
Now that the madness is behind us, let’s win a couple of bets, and let’s start north of the border.
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Winnipeg Jets ML (-130, FanDuel)
This bet relies on three key pillars, the first of which is simple: there’s still a Vegas Golden Knights tax in the market despite them not being a very good team. But, they’ve never missed the playoffs in their history, they’re a popular team to bet on, and because of that, they’re overvalued.
What do I mean by that? They’re 2-5-0 in their last seven games, their points percentage is 56.3% overall, and they’re currently clinging to a playoff spot by a single point. They’re also without their starting goaltender Robin Lehner. Yet the Jets are only -130 at home after the Golden Knights played last night in Minnesota? Seems like we’re getting good value.
The second pillar here is the goaltender. We’ll most likely see Laurent Brossoit, Vegas’s usual backup behind Lehner. He was supposed to take the starting reins once Lehner went down with injury again, but he’s been floundering in net. In his last eight starts, Brossoit is 1-6-1 with a 4.50 goals against average and it’s forced rookie Logan Thompson to become the de-facto starter. Thompson has started three consecutive for Vegas including last night, so all signs point to the struggling Brossoit against his former team tonight.
And finally, a picture was painted about the Winnipeg Jets that they were supposed to be trade deadline sellers because they don’t feel like they can make the playoffs with this current team. Really? Because I saw a re-tool, not a fire sale. They dealt Andrew Copp to the Rangers, but they also brought in Mason Appleton who plays an almost identical style to Copp. He also played for the Jets before being selected by Seattle in the expansion draft, so the transition should be seamless as he re-enters the Jets’ lineup. Winnipeg also acquired Zach Sanford and while this isn’t a splashy move, it’s not one of a team folding the tent on this season.
The Jets are still trying to not only win games, but get to the playoffs. And one of the teams they’ll have to leapfrog to get there is the visiting Golden Knights. Play the Jets down to -135.
Pick: Jets ML -130, FanDuel
Arizona Coyotes ML (-114, FanDuel)
There are 11 games to choose from on tonight’s slate, so why on earth are we placing a best bet on a game featuring the NHL’s two worst teams? Because there’s a ton of value on the home team – that’s why.
The Coyotes are hot. I can’t believe I’m saying that either, but they’re playing extremely well over the past few weeks, and they’re having fun doing it. Spirits are high despite all the extracurriculars going on around the team, and they’re a profitable team to be betting on right now. Arizona is 7-4-0 in their last 11 games, and that streak includes wins over Vegas, Colorado, and Toronto, as well as back-to-back wins over Detroit and Ottawa where the Yotes exploded for 17 goals. In fact, Arizona is averaging 4.18 goals per game over that span, third-most in the league.
Arizona also didn’t sell off their entire roster as everyone expected. They traded 1B goaltender Scott Wedgewood to Dallas, sent Riley Nash back to Tampa Bay, and dealt an injured Johan Larsson to Washington. Phil Kessel is still here, Clayton Keller is still here, Jacob Chychrun is still here, Karel Vejmelka even got an extension to stay here. And they added the exclusive rights to two top NCAA players. Sure, some of those moves won’t have an impact tonight or really even this year, but despite moving their team to a college arena, there’s a clear commitment from ownership to turn this franchise around. And that resonates with players.
The same can’t be said on the other bench with the Kraken. Seattle made six trades and were the sellers on five of them, sending six lineup mainstays across the league. The purge is on in Seattle after just a half-season in existence, and this already barren roster has become a complete skeleton. It’s hard to believe, but the Kraken will most likely ice a less talented roster than Arizona, and after six key players were dealt, it’s going to take a while for all the new pieces to get in sync at this level.
We don’t bet on Arizona much, but this is a key spot. Play them down to -130.
Pick: Coyotes ML (-114, FanDuel)
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Mike Wagenman is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him on Twitter @mjwags23.