Tuesday night means hockey night, and there’s plenty of action across the NHL this week to enjoy! Tonight, the Edmonton Oilers see the opportunity to build a winning streak after a pair of victories with a matchup against the lowly Buffalo Sabres on deck. However, Buffalo will surely be desperate after losing three straight. Will see see an upset this evening, or will Edmonton prevail as expected?
Here’s a Sabres vs. Oilers prediction and pick on DraftKings Sportsbook for Tuesday’s contest.
Sabres vs. Oilers prediction, preview
These two franchises find themselves in entirely different positions this season, but that’s not exactly a big surprise for either organization. The Oilers are competing for an elusive Stanley Cup, but have fallen behind in the Pacific Division with a 13-11-5 record for just 31 points on the campaign. The Sabres looked alive for a moment, but the reality of the rebuild has them 11-14-4 with just 26 points at the bottom of the Atlantic Division.
Edmonton’s underperformed thus far, but has seen some bad injury lucky as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins previously missed time while Kasperi Kapanen, Jake Walman and Jack Roslovic are all dealing with some longer-term issues themselves. While the offense is generally strong with 3.31 GF/GP behind the efforts of Connor McDavid (42 P) and Leon Draisaitl (37 P), the blue line is where the issues lie. The Oilers have the seventh-best scoring offense but a negative goal differential of -6 as they allow the fifth-most GA/GP at 3.45. Finding consistent play in the net is near impossible with Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard, neither of whom has a SV% above .889. Even playing well on special teams with the second-best PP% of 33.3% and a PK% of 80.8% just isn’t enough to overcome the defensive lapses. There’s no question finding a better netminder will be the front office’s focus moving forward.
As rough as some of these games look for Edmonton, the fans in Buffalo have it much worse. The Sabres’ goal differential of -15 is the worst in the Eastern Conference and they’re the only team without at least 30 points on the campaign thus far. The franchise sits 18th in scoring at 2.97 GF/GP but third-worst defensively with 3.55 GA/GP, so it’s easy to see why the losses keep coming. The power play hits at just a 19.1% rate, but there is one bright spot as Buffalo comes in with the third-best penalty kill at 85.5%. Notably, the Sabres deploy four skaters with at least 20 points between Alex Tuch (25), Tage Thompson (23), Josh Doan (20) and Rasmus Dahlin (20), but it’s not enough to make up for a bad blue line and goalie tandem. Alex Lyon is anticipated to start in net with a 3.16 GAA and .901 SV%, but that’s not set in stone as of publication time.
Sabres vs. Oilers pick, best bet
DraftKings Sportsbook lists the Oilers as -205 favorites on the Moneyline tonight at home. The Sabres hold +170 odds to win outright with the total set at 6.5 combined goals. Thus far, 89% of straight wagers favor Edmonton while 53% of bets on the total lean toward the over.
Handling the duo of McDavid and Draisaitl is a tall task for any team in the NHL, but especially so for a poor blue line like Buffalo’s. Dahlin is a talented play driver and Bowen Byram is good in his own right, but the defensemen surrounding them will have their work cut out for them tonight. The hope for the Sabres isn’t to stop the Oilers, but to simply score enough to keep up. With how banged-up this Edmonton roster currently is outside the top-four guys, there’s a case for Buffalo to hang around. However, it’ll take monster efforts on offense to match McDavid, and there’s probably just not enough firepower to get it done. Doing the little things well also matters a ton in this league — with the Oilers near the top in FOW% at 52.7% and the Sabres dead-last at 44.0%, there may be a lot of extra possessions for Edmonton to score an insurance goal or two.
