As we approach the holiday weekend, we are down to two NHL slates before a mini-break. Tonight’s slate is not the jampacked slate we had last week but perhaps that’s a good thing. This slate is a perfect size with seven games to choose from.
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12/22 NHL Main Slate – Beginning 7 p.m. ET
*All odds and player pricing below have been obtained from DraftKings and are accurate as of the time of writing*
Winnipeg Jets (+190) at Boston Bruins (-225) – 6 Projected Goal Total
Carolina Hurricanes (-105) at Pittsburgh Penguins (-115) – 5.5 Projected Goal Total
Washington Capitals (-120) at Ottawa Senators (+100) – 6.5 Projected Goal Total
New York Islanders (+135) at New York Rangers (-155) – 5.5 Projected Goal Total
Seattle Kraken (-120) at Vancouver Canucks (+100) – 6.5 Projected Goal Total
Calgary Flames (-110) at Los Angeles Kings (-110) – 6 Projected Goal Total
Minnesota Wild (-165) at San Jose Sharks (+140) – 6 Projected Goal Total
12/22 NHL Favorite Popular Line
Minnesota One “Kirill Kaprizov ($8,800), Mats Zuccarello ($8,100), Sam Steel ($3,900)“
On a slate mostly filled with much tighter matchups, Minnesota stands out as one of the bigger favorites at -165. Furthermore, the top line leads all NHL lines in SATF and is tied for second in goals scored “10” over the last ten games. They should be chalky, but Kirill Kaprizov is coming off back-to-back three-point games and is in a position to add to that streak. As for Mats Zuccarello, he has stepped up his game to new levels with 36 points in 31 games including scoring double-digit DraftKings points in eight straight games. Sam Steel may not give us the upside of the other two skaters “absent some luck” but is less than half each of their prices, so there’s that!
12/22 NHL Favorite Contrarian Line
Seattle One “Jared McCann ($4,300), Jordan Eberle ($4,400), Matty Beniers ($5,300)”
As you can see in the graphic above, this line has been killing it lately as well over the last ten-game sample size. However, I don’t think people will be rushing to play them. Much like the Wild above, they will be playing in a late game. This is one of the two 6.5 total games on the slate and Seattle is a favorite albeit a slight one. Furthermore, these guys are cheap. If looking to condense a little more, I don’t mind running it as a two-man stack with just Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle. They’re the two cheapest of the three skaters and the salary savings comes in handy. This said it is Eberle and Matty Beniers who feature on the Kraken’s top power-play unit.
Defenseman and Goalie
Defenseman
Justin Schultz – Seattle – $3,400 – It’s hard to pass up a defenseman quarterbacking a top power-play unit for $3,400. Justin Schultz has 17 points in 29 games, albeit mostly of the apple variety “14”. Considering he helps correlate with the second line listed above “with Beniers and Eberle on the Seattle PP1”, he makes sense tonight.
Goalie
Igor Shesterkin – New York Rangers – $8,100 – It’s painful for me to write about. However, the Islanders have simply put not been scoring many goals recently. There is some solid shutout win upside here. Prior to a road loss in Pittsburgh “3-2”, he had won six straight starts and the Rangers are -155 favorites.
12/22 NHL Best Bet
San Jose Sharks ML (+140) – DraftKings – 1 Unit – While we might be on the Minnesota top line, perhaps we will have the best of all worlds here. The Sharp Model is giving San Jose actual odds of -110 for 13.33% EV.
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