First TD Bets — Wild Card Monday Slate
Alex Christenson
Tuesday’s NHL best bets will cover the night’s 13-game slate that has a first puck drop scheduled for 7 p.m. ET.
With our FTN betting package, you’ll get picks from everyone at FTN, plus tools, projections and access to Discord, where I’ll discuss every slate.
Today’s Best Bets
Philadelphia/Columbus Over 6.5
(-110, Bet365/DraftKings Sportsbook/BetMGM/Caesars)
The Flyers offense is heating up, with 10 goals over their last two games. They are gifted an outstanding matchup against Columbus’s third-best goaltender, Daniil Tarasov, statistically the second-worst goalie in the NHL (minimum 10 games), thanks to his dreadful -1.29 GSAA/60. On the other side of the ice, it doesn’t get much better considering it will not be Samuel Ersson in the crease for the Flyers. Instead, it’ll either be Ivan Fedotov or Aleksei Kolosov, who have both been negative GSAA goalies this season. The Blue Jackets offense has been sensational this season, as they’ve been carried by their dynamic young Russian duo in Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronov. This matchup has all the makings of a high-scoring affair, so we are absolutely taking the over on the total.
Detroit Red Wings -1.5
(+128, FanDuel Sportsbook, 2 units to win 2.56 units)
I said it in this article from the very get go: The coaching change that the Red Wings made to Todd McLellan was a good one. Still, even I couldn’t picture the move going this well. After losing their first game under McLellan, the Red Wings have won seven straight games. A big reason for that is that they’ve been rocking the league’s best power-play, scoring in 52% of their power-play chances over this seven-game span. At the other end of the spectrum, it’s the lowly Sharks penalty kill that has only killed 66.7% of their penalties over their last seven games. The puck line probably shouldn’t be this favorable considering the circumstances, but I don’t believe the oddsmakers are giving much respect to Ville Husso, who is getting the start over Cam Talbot and the injured Alex Lyon. Husso got off to a horrible start that led to him getting ousted from Detroit and sent to Grand Rapids where he was finally able to figure out his form. His last six-game stint went much better, and his 1.62 GSAA in December actually was the best on the team.
Bonus Bets
Vegas Golden Knights -1.5 (+220, Bet365)
Seattle Kraken ML (+122, FanDuel)
New Jersey Devils ML (-150, Bet365)
Montreal Canadiens ML (+136, DraftKings)
Player prop bets will be posted on Discord.
Goal Scorers
Brayden Point
Roope Hintz
Dmitri Voronov
Owen Tippett
Alex DeBrincat
Dylan Larkin
Alex Ovechkin
Jared McCann
Shane Wright
Timo Meier
Jesper Bratt
Gabriel Vilardi
Brayden Schenn
Mark Stone
Cole Caufield
