Check out my preview and plays for the games tonight…
Florida Panthers (+100) @ Tampa Bay Lightning (-120)
These teams face for the first time since Tampa Bay knocked out the Panthers in the first round of the playoffs last year. During the regular season, Florida had the upper hand and was able to capture the higher seed and home ice advantage. However, the Lightning also got back a few key pieces in the playoffs which propelled them past the Panthers on their way to another Stanley Cup.
The Panthers enter tonight with a 2-0-0 record, and a red hot goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky. Bobrovsky seems to be on a bit of a revenge tour after being benched during the playoffs last year in favor of Chris Driedger and Spencer Knight. Even with Bobrovsky being the league leading goalie in GSAx with a +6.2, Spencer Knight will get his first start of the season tonight.
The Bolts, will have Andrei Vasilevskiy in net tonight, making his fourth start of the season. Tampa will look to pick up their third win of the season as well tonight, as they enter tonight’s game with a 2-1-0 record. Vasilevskiy hasn’t been in Conn Smythe form this season with a -0.4 GSAx. The Lightning, also lost a key player in Nikita Kucherov as he left Saturday’s OT win over Washington with an undisclosed injury. Kucherov was off to a great start with 4 points through three games and a +1.2 expected goals. The initial report is that he’ll miss a significant amount of time for a second straight season.
Pick: Florida Panthers (+100)
Even with Spencer Knight making his first start of the season, I still like Florida here. He played well against Tampa last year. The Lightning look to be slow and not fully in form yet. At + money, this play has some value for me as I see this more of a 50-50 game.
Best of luck, and as always you can find me on Twitter @GatorBetting and Instagram @Gator_Sports_Betting.
