NHL Bet of the Week

With only one game remaining for the New York Rangers and for the Toronto Maple Leafs this game can become easy to predict once you break down what this game means for the NHL playoffs.

Rangers

The New York Rangers have one of the best top six forward groups in the NHL with perennial all stars, Artemi Panarin, Patrick Kane, Mika Zibenjadi, and Vladimir Tarasenko. With all of this offensive power their style of play is built for overs in games like this.

However, the Rangers can’t no possibly improve their playoff seed and will have to travel to play either the New Jersey Devils, or the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round.

The Rangers have played extremely well down the stretch, but with nothing to play for and the risk of injuries they will not be looking to win this game as much as others and could lead to a lower scoring game.

Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs also have nothing to play for as they will be hosting the Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs no matter what. As they played the Lightning a couple nights ago winning 4-3 they rested guys like Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews.

For this game you could see guys like Ryan O’Rielly and John Tavares being sat, especially with O’Rielly already coming off of an injury earlier this year. The Leafs have not been past the first round since 2004 and they couldn’t care less about this game.

The combination of both teams having nothing to play for sure definitely drive down scoring and result in a less physical matchup and quicker game that should have less power play opportunities for each team.

Previous Matchups

Both of the previous matchups between the Leafs and Rangers have gone under 6.5 goals, with game one being won by the Rangers 3-1. Game two was won by the Leafs 2-1.

Both of these games occurred before the Rangers acquired Kane and Tarasenko both of who are elite scoring wingers, however, that shouldn’t worry you as both could end up sitting and resting for the playoffs

If this game was being played five years ago the idea of resting players would seem crazy, especially in the NHL world. However, times have changed and teams are using analytics to improve their chances in the playoffs and resting players should help with that.

Overall, do yourself a favor and bet the under 6.5 goals in this matchup to make some money. There is simply nothing to play for, for either team and that should result in a low scoring game.

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