On Thursday night, I lost my game of the year for the first time ever, a goal short on the Vegas team total as they lost 3-2 in overtime, with the Stars extending the series to Game 5. The Knights look to bounce back and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals tonight at home.
Game 5: Golden Knights vs. Stars (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 and Game 4 being an overtime win for the Stars to extend the series, the series hasn’t been so close, as the Golden Knights come into Game 5 tonight up 3-1 with the chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second time in their short franchise history and face the Florida Panthers. 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. 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. The Stars picked up their first win of the series with a 3-2 overtime win at home in Game 4 with Joe Pavelski being the hero, scoring his game-winner on the power play, 3:18 into OT. It was a tight and close game, with the teams trading goals in the first and second periods, as Dallas outshot the Knights 42-39 and outplayed Vegas by an expected goal rate of 3.33-2.45. The Golden Knights scored in the first 4:17 of the first period and then just scored once more in the next 59:01 of the game, giving me my first ever loss on a game of the year bet, a goal short of hitting their team total. The Stars are still without their captain Jamie Benn, who’s serving the second game of his two-game suspension. After losing Game 4 in overtime, blowing two leads in the game, I expect the Golden Knights to bounce back at home with a win to clinch the Western Conference and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. Vegas has not lost back-to-back games in the playoffs and haven’t since March. The Knights have been the better team in this series, finding ways to win even in games that they’ve been outplayed in. Especially with the huge home-ice advantage in the Fortress, they’ll get it done tonight to make their second trip to the finals in franchise history to take on the awaiting Florida Panthers. 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. 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. I’m going right back to my same bet as my game of the year on Friday, but scaling it back to four units tonight, so I guess you can call it a game of the month. I’d love to hammer it even more again, but I can’t justify that big of a bet again to chase it with the much higher juice at -177. Ideally Vegas scores three goals to hit the team total and then the Stars come back to extend the series to Game 6 to cash my big over 5.5 games prop. Although this series has trended under, with Games 2, 3, and 4 staying under the total and Game 1 needing a four-goal third period to hit the over, I’d lean the over tonight in Game 5. 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 four 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’ll stay off it though, since I already have the Vegas team total again.
Game Bets
4u Golden Knights TT over 2.5 (-177)
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: 806-673-35 (-86.84 units)
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A Town's Zone 