Tuesday was a rare losing night for our NHL betting picks this season as we went 0-2.
The Capitals somehow stayed Under their team total of 3.5 goals despite scoring 3 times before the game was 25 minutes old and then seeing the Canucks pull their goalie for the last 4 minutes of regulation. In our other bet, the Wild first period moneyline, Calgary led 1-0 after one period and eventually prevailed 3-2 in overtime.
Those losses dropped our season record to 13-7, with most of those bets paying close to even money or better. There isn’t much opportunity to try to get back on track in Thursday’s action, since there are only 3 games on the schedule, but we like one game enough to give it a shot.
Don’t forget to check out our live odds page if you’re interested in seeing tonight’s NHL betting lines. Otherwise, here’s what we like for tonight:
NHL Betting Picks For Tonight
Columbus Blue Jackets at Buffalo Sabres
When you’re betting sports with the sole intent of making money, it’s easy to be too conservative. We often find ourselves trying to talk ourselves out of making a bet, especially when it looks too easy.
That’s the case tonight in Buffalo, where the Blue Jackets come into town as winners of 3 of their last 4 while the host Sabres have dropped 5 straight and 7 of 8. Buffalo is also giving goaltender Linus Ullmark his first start of the season (though he does have 21 games of NHL experience), while the Jackets’ Sergei Bobrovsky has been a different goalie since sitting out a couple of games recently. Over his last 4, Bob is 3-1 with a .948 save percentage.
Our trepidation here is that the Sabres are coming off a sloppy 7-4 loss at home to the Jets, making it likely that we see a better effort tonight. The start of Ullmark could also be a bit of a wakeup call to the Buffalo players, who should want to play better in front of their young goalie, and the Blue Jackets haven’t been scoring many goals lately (6 regulation time markers in their last 5 games.)
But there’s one stat that pushes us over the edge here: the recent first-period splits of both teams. Over the last 10 games, Columbus has outscored its opponents 6-0, while the Sabres have been outscored 11-2 during the same span. The reversal of those two trends in the same game seems unlikelier than the -126 odds would suggest, so we’ll ride with the Blue Jackets first period moneyline tonight.
NHL betting prediction: Blue Jackets First Period Moneyline -126