Top NHL Betting Picks For Tuesday, October 26th (2021)
Through the first few weeks, the NHL season has been filled with parity, surprises, and tons of young talent. Is the window closing for the recent powerhouses like Tampa Bay and Vegas? Or is all that extra playoff hockey in a crammed schedule finally catching up to the teams who played more games than everyone else?
The Metropolitan division is by far the toughest in the NHL. Every team has a winning record, every team has a positive goal differential, and the eight teams have combined for just eight regulation losses in 42 games. Over in the Atlantic, the standings look flipped upside down. Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Montreal are three of the four bottom teams while Buffalo and Detroit are sitting in the top three.
Out west, Colorado has gotten off to a slow start in the Central Division, but they were without a bunch of their stars for a few games early on. Meanwhile, Chicago looks downright awful despite trying to keep the Cup window open with acquisitions like Marc-Andre Fleury and Seth Jones. And in the Pacific, let’s just say the 2021-22 Seattle Kraken aren’t the 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights, and it’s not close.
As for our best bets, we split last week, but an even-money winner on the Islanders in Chicago kept us from losing even a fraction of a unit. Here’s what we’ve got in store this week.
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Pittsburgh Penguins ML (+125)
The Penguins, despite not having Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, and Sidney Crosby for nearly all of the season so far have looked pretty darn good. They’ve yet to drop a game in regulation, they’re coming off a 7-1 drubbing of the Maple Leafs, and they’re well-rested – they haven’t played since Saturday.
Mike Sullivan has always been a coach who likes to muck up the middle of the ice and make it impossible for the opposing team to put together any sort of sustained rushes, especially with a lead, but he’s taken it to a new level this year – probably because he doesn’t have his offensive stars to rely upon to put the puck in the net. Luckily for him, not only has it worked, but other players like Evan Rodrigues have stepped up offensively and helped Pittsburgh earn the third-best goal differential in the NHL at plus-11. But, as good as the Penguins have been, the Lightning have looked just the opposite to start the year.
Tampa Bay lost their entire third line this offseason, and many believed it was a key to them winning back-to-back championships. They’ve also already lost Nikita Kucherov, and you don’t need stats to back up how important he is to this team. And are the last two playoff runs catching up to Andrei Vasilevskiy? His save percentage is an ugly .893 after being .925 last year, and his goals against average is 3.12. The highest GAA he’s ever posted was 2.76 all the way back in 2015-16. He’s also allowed 1.4 goals above expectation; this after saving 26.6 goals above expectation in last year’s playoffs alone. The Big Cat just doesn’t look right, and teams are taking advantage.
The Lightning are also playing on back-to-back nights after getting rocked by Buffalo of all teams last night, and have already been dominated by Pittsburgh down in Florida earlier this year in a 6-2 defeat. Pittsburgh is rested, they’re the better team right now and they’re playing like it, and I’m going to fade the inflated prices on the Lightning until they give me a reason not to. I’d play Pittsburgh down to +110.
Minnesota Wild ML (-115)
Last week we cashed in on a road underdog trying to play spoiler in their opponent’s home opener, and this week we’re going to try to do the same. Almost. Minnesota is actually a favorite, but they’ve got a chance to rain on the Canucks’ home opener after Vancouver played the first five games of their season away from home. Contrary to popular belief, this is a spot where I love to fade the home team. Here’s why.
The Canucks have been away from their homes, their families, their lives, and their routines for just under two weeks now. Is the home crowd going to be fired up? Certainly. But, there are so many distractions for a team coming home after being away so long. Reuniting with family and friends, getting ready for the home opener – those are all things that take away a team’s focus on what needs to happen on the ice. Take a look at the Seattle Kraken just a few days ago, for example. They played their first five contests on the road as the NHL marched them from city to city. And what happened when they returned home? They got beat 4-2 by these Canucks on their home ice.
How about the New Orleans Saints in the NFL? They were displaced from home for just under a month thanks to Hurricane Ida, and in their home opener, they came out flat and lost to the lowly New York Giants. I think we’ll see the same outcome with the Canucks as we saw with the Kraken and Saints.
I also just don’t think Seattle is very good. I mentioned in the open – their inaugural season is nothing like Vegas’s. Perhaps the front offices around the league smartened up, or perhaps Ron Francis and the Kraken just bungled the expansion draft and free agency. I do think there’s a little of both in play, but I can assure you the Kraken did not build even close to the best team they could have with the options available to them. And it’s really hurt them early on; they’re just 1-4-1 with the third-worst goal differential in hockey (-10).
The Wild come into Vancouver 4-1-0, and while their goal differential is just plus-1, they’re undefeated with Cam Talbot in net – the goaltender who is expected to start in this one. They’ve also got the best CF% in the NHL (56.91%), the best SF% (60.00%), the best xGF% by a lot (61.34%), the second-best scoring chance ratio (57.21%), and the third-best high-danger chance ratio (59.15%).
They’re flat-out dominating. In fact, the gap in xGF% between the first-ranked Wild and the second-ranked Penguins is wider than the gap between the Penguins and the 14th-ranked Predators.
Minnesota is firing on all cylinders and is already 2-0 on the road. Make it 3-0 tonight; bet the Wild down to -125 on the moneyline.
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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.