The NHL schedule-makers are certainly interesting. Let’s have an 11-game slate on a Thursday night while the NFL and MLB are airing major events then decide to have only three games played on a Friday night. Brilliant! The Sharks lost last night against the Blackhawks and had to travel to Winnipeg overnight. They now find themselves as the only team operating on a back-to-back tonight and as heavy +260 underdogs on the Moneyline against the Jets. That said, here are my favorite bets for tonight’s betting card on DraftKings Sportsbook.
2024-25 NHL Record: 14-6
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San Jose Sharks at Winnipeg Jets
MacKenzie Blackwood Over 28.5 Saves (-115)
Instead of rolling with my usual cash cow, Connor Hellebuyck, I’m trusting Blackwood to surpass 29 saves tonight. He hasn’t necessarily been great in two starts, allowing 3.34 goals per game and posting a .904 save percentage but we don’t care about that here –– we only care about the Jets getting a ton of shots on net.
In Blackwood’s two starts this season, he’s stopped 35 and 36 shots against the Blues and Stars, respectively. The good thing is that Winnipeg has averaged the 10th-most shots per game (30.0), which is higher than both St. Louis and Dallas. Plus, the Jets have averaged 34.2 shots per game in their last 10 meetings against the Sharks. I’m expecting this game to be low-scoring because of Hellebuyck and San Jose’s lack of offensive production but that doesn’t mean Winnipeg won’t light up Blackwood in the shot department all night long either.
Anaheim Ducks at Colorado Avalanche
COL Avalanche Puck Line -1.5 (-105)
Both of these teams have had interesting starts to the new season, to say the least. Anaheim has gone 2-1 through its first three games while Colorado is still in search of its first win of the season. This feels like a get-right spot at home for the Avalanche and some negative regression should be coming for the Ducks soon. Colorado has won eight of the last 10 meetings versus Anaheim by an average of 2.6 goals.
Alexandar Georgiev should start for Colorado, but he has been flat-out awful, allowing a whopping 5.79 goals per game to go along with a .802 save percentage. Even if Colorado pivots to 24-year-old Justus Annunen, it’s not going to be much better as he has been arguably even worse than Georgiev, allowing 4.69 goals per game and posting a .765 save percentage. As a squad, the Avs have allowed a league-high 25 goals in just four games. On the Ducks’ side, I’m expecting Lukas Dostal to draw the start, who has been solid in two starts thus far, allowing just 1.99 goals per game and posting a .933 save percentage. He did allow 3.33 goals per game and posted a .902 save percentage last season but I’d expect Nathan MacKinnon and company to get the scoring going early.
This Anaheim squad is due for some real regression. The Ducks have allowed just seven goals this season but the Avs are the perfect team to bring them back down to Earth. Colorado ranks fourth in expected goal percentage (57.66%) and first in power play percentage (50%). It also ranks fifth in expected goals against (6.66), suggesting that it is doing its job by limiting high-quality chances but the goaltending has completely canceled it out. The Ducks rank bottom-10 in both expected goal percentage (48.65%) and expected goals (7.38) on top of already fielding a middling penalty kill unit (77.8%). This all bodes well for the Avs to pick up their first win of the season, and by at least two goals.
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All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook, lines and odds subject to change.
All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.
