We have four elimination games tonight in the NHL. The Bruins will look to win Game 6 at home to extend their season. The Leafs are up 3-2 in their series with Tampa Bay and have a chance to close them out on the road. St. Louis has won two straight with the chance of closing out Minnesota at home. Lastly, Edmonton needs to steal one on the road to force a Game 7 with Los Angeles.
Carolina Hurricanes @ Boston Bruins
What an interesting series this has been as the home team has won every game. If you’re looking to follow that trend, then the Bruins are your pick for tonight. However, I’m not as confident in Boston tonight. Before the start of Game 3, they moved David Pastrnak back on the top line with Marchand and Bergeron which has sparked their offense, specifically Marchand. The issue for Carolina the last time they visited Boston was their lack of discipline taking 9 penalties. Boston’s powerplay hasn’t been great but they were able to score two on the powerplay in that game.
While this series has been tight, the games haven’t. In every game, the winner has been decided by two or more goals. Also, every game in this series has either gone over or pushed.
With all that being said, I’m not sure that trend continues here. The Bruins will need to play solid defense that transitions into offense. They’ll get back Hampus Lindholm tonight which will bolster their defense. Also, I don’t see the Carolina Hurricanes, who were on of the most disciplined teams this season, taking nine penalties again.
– BOSTON BRUINS/ CAROLINA HURRICANES UNDER 6.0 (-122) – FanDuel
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Tampa Bay Lightning
The Leafs have a chance to close out the back to back Stanley Cup Champions tonight. Toronto has not won a playoff series since 2004. The Lightning, have not lost back to back games in the past two post seasons. Toronto started off the series with a dominating performance in Game 1, and since then the series has flip flopped with no team winning two consecutive games. It’s pretty simple for me here, based off the stats of Andrei Vasilevskiy after a loss it’s hard not to back him here tonight. The Lightning have the playoff experience and should be able to pull this one out tonight to force a Game 7.
– TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING ml (-133) – Barstool
I took this Tampa Bay at -122 on Circa this morning so be sure to follow me on Twitter @GatorBetting.
Edmonton Oilers @ Los Angeles Kings
The Oilers are on the brink of elimination tonight and are going all in moving Leon Draisaitl up to the first line with McDavid and Yamamoto. Evander Kane has been moved down to the second line with Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman. The Kings are at home tonight so they will be able to get the matchups they want. It’ll be interesting to see if they try to match Edmonton’s top line up with Danault or Kopitar’s line. I don’t have an official play in this matchup tonight but I do lean the under.
– LEAN: EDMONTON OILERS/ LOS ANGELES KINGS UNDER 6.5 (-115)
Linemate Player Prop of the Night
For tonight’s Linemate Player Prop were looking at Brayden Point over 2.5 Shots on Goal. Point has gone over this number in three of the five games this series. He missed in the first game with 2 SOG, then responded nicely in Game 3 with 6. In Game 5, he did miss that total by one shot on goal, so I’m looking for him to follow that same trend we saw earlier and have a big night tonight. It’s also an elimination game for the Lightning tonight and they’ll need Point to generate some offense for them.
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– BRAYDEN POINT OVER 2.5 SOG (-135) – DraftKings
Best of luck, and as always you can find me on Twitter @GatorBetting and Instagram @Gator_Sports_Betting.
