MetroBet takes a look at the best bets on the NHL slate for Tuesday night.
Washington Capitals at Minnesota Wild
Moneyline: Capitals -105, Wild -120
Puckline: Capitals +1.5 goals (+290), Wild -1.5 goals (-235)
Betting Total: 5.5 goals (Over -105, Under -115)
The Minnesota Wild (11-4-2) play their first home game since Oct. 27 on Tuesday night (8 p.m.) after an extended seven-game road trip in which they went 5-2. The Capitals (7-6-3), by contrast, limp into the Xcel Energy Center off a 2-3 home stand, scoring just four goals over their last three games.
Devyn Dubnyk has been solid between the pipes for the Wild all year long, and his last two performances have been superb (.949 save percentage). He’ll match up with a Washington squad that’s just 19th in shots per game at 30.8. That number gets even lower (30.0) in road games.
Good goaltending has been hard to come by for the Capitals away from home, as their goals against average is 4.67. Braden Holtby, expected to man the crease for Washington in this one, has to step it up to keep his team in this game.
Washington may be the more rested team, but the Wild have thrived in the final leg of four-games-in-six-nights situations (5-0 in their last five chances. Expect Mikael Granlund to continue his outstanding play for Minnesota (five points in his last three games) as the Wild win in their home return.
Prediction: Minnesota wins, 3-1
Tampa Bay Lightning at Buffalo Sabres
Moneyline: Lightning -145, Sabres +130
Puckline: Lightning -1.5 goals (+205), Sabres +1.5 goals (-245)
Betting Total: 6.0 goals (Over -115, Under +105)
Atlantic Division rivals collide at KeyBank Center on Tuesday night (7:30 p.m.) for the first time this season as the Tampa Bay Lightning (12-4-1) take on the Buffalo Sabres (9-6-2). The Lightning are first in the division while the Sabres are fifth, but the difference is just five points and Buffalo is no longer a league-wide punchline.
Looking at the leading scorers for each club, Buffalo’s Jeff Skinner has been better than Tampa’s Brayden Point of late. Point has been held off the scoresheet in two straight, posting a minus-4 rating. Skinner has found the back of the net three times in the last two games, and six times in the last five. His plus/minus rating over the last five games is plus-1.
Both clubs have reliable netminders in Andrei Vasilevskiy and Carter Hutton, but Vasilevskiy has had a subpar start to November by his standards (.915 save percentage). Four of those five starts occurred at home. Hutton has a .917 save percentage in November, with three of his four appearances occurring on the road.
Prediction: Sabres win, 4-3
The play: Wild -120 and Sabres +130 Parlay (+322)
