NHL Daily Gambling Preview – 5/25/23

With an electric finish last night to the Eastern Conference with Matthew Tkachuk scoring the game winner with 4.3 seconds left in regulation for the Panthers to sweep the Hurricanes, I ended up having a losing night, dropping 3.44 units, losing my Carolina series bet and future, but went 2-2 on my daily plays and have incredible value on Bobrovsky to win the Conn Smythe. Tonight in Dallas, the Golden Knights will look to sweep the Stars as well to advance to face the Panthers in the Stanley Cup Finals.

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Game 4: Stars vs. Golden Knights (8:00)

I expected a fantastic Western Conference Finals series between the top seed in the West, the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Dallas Stars. Although the first two games were very close, both decided in overtime after tying goals late in the third period, the series has become not so close, as the Golden Knights come into Game 4 tonight up 3-0 with the chance to sweep the Stars to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time in their short franchise history. In Game 1, the Golden Knights opened the series with a 4-3 overtime win after a high-scoring four-goal third period. The Stars forced overtime on Jamie Benn’s goal with 1:59 remaining in regulation but Brett Howden was the overtime hero just 1:35 into OT to get the Knights the win at home in the Fortress to take a 1-0 series lead. Vegas outshot the Stars 37-36 and outplayed Dallas by an expected goal rate of 2.9-2.22. Game 2 was just as fun. It started quicker, with the teams trading goals in the first period. This time it was Vegas that tied up the game late as Jonathan Marchessault forced overtime with his goal with just 2:22 left in regulation and then Chandler Stephenson gave Vegas the 2-0 series lead at home heading on the road to Dallas tonight for Game 3. The Stars outshot Vegas 28-24 and outplayed the Knights by an expected goal rate of 3.24-2.88 but couldn’t get the win. Game 3 played out quite differently. Very early in the game, Jamie Benn took an extremely stupid cross-checking penalty as he ran over Mark Stone, getting a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Benn was also suspended two games for that bonehead move, so the Stars will be without their captain tonight. Vegas scored on that power play, giving them an early 2-0 lead just 5:57 into the game. They scored again just 1:13 later to go up 3-0 and with how sound the Knights are defensively, cruised to a 4-0 shutout win. Adin Hill made 34 saves in his shutout to put the Stars on the brink of elimination at home. Dallas outshot Vegas significantly, 34-16, and outplayed the Knights by an expected goal rate of 2.35-0.81, but the score was obviously much more lopsided. I think the momentum is entirely out of the sails for the Stars and their season is over. Going into the series I thought the Golden Knights would win it in six or seven games as the much more experienced and deeper, more well-rounded team. It seems that I was right on that prediction but the Knights will be getting it done much quicker. The Stars have outplayed Vegas in two of the three games in this series and yet still have not been able to find a way to win. I expect the Golden Knights to end this series tonight with a win on the road, sweeping the Stars. The Knights should get out to a lead and be able to hang on with how fantastic they’ve played defensively. I’ll end up losing a good amount tonight with a Vegas win, losing both my series bets on this series to go at least six games and to go to Game 7. I have to hedge against that since I expect the Knights to end this series with a sweep tonight. I also have futures on both of these teams, so although I’ll lose 2 units on the Stars, I have awesome value on the Golden Knights to win the Cup at +1300 from very early in the season. Although this series has trended under, with Games 2 and 3 staying under the total and Game 1 needing a four-goal third period to hit the over, I like the over quite a bit tonight in Game 4. Elimination games always trend to the over since chaos occurs in the third period when the series-leading team has a lead. We see goalies getting pulled much earlier and in multi-goal deficits with plenty of empty net goals. I don’t see the Stars going down without a fight, and they should both trade goals in this game earlier on. That being said, I expect the Golden Knights to be leading late in this game, as they have through two of the three previous games in this series, and Oettinger to be on the bench early. With a few empty net goals, that should put the game over the low 5.5 total. I’m combined both my expectation of Vegas to win along with that I like the over and hammering this game tonight with my biggest play of the year, the Vegas Golden Knights team total over 2.5 for eight units. They’ve scored at least three goals in every game in this series and in all but three of their 14 playoff games. Ideally we’ll get the Knights to score at least three goals in a losing effort to extend the series but as long as we cash that team total I’ll be happy. Game of the year. Let’s fucking go Knights.

Game Bets

8u Golden Knights TT over 2.5 (-136)

Series Bets

2u Golden Knights/Stars over 5.5 games (-186)

.5u Golden Knights/Stars over 6.5 games (+200)

Futures

2u Vegas Golden Knights – Stanley Cup Champions (+1200)

2u Dallas Stars – Stanley Cup Champions (+815)

.5u Sergei Bobrovsky – Conn Smythe Trophy Winner (+4000)

Record: 806-672-35 (-75.76 units)

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