Mark Lammey
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Friday provides a short five-game slate to get us prepared for a loaded weekend. There are Eastern Conference foes facing off, teams on back-to-backs, and plenty of high-powered offenses. Among those are the Avalanche traveling up over the border to Winnipeg and the Panthers looking to continue their historic goal-scoring season. Along with our player props, be sure to check out our full game previews for tonight’s matchups.
Cale Makar over 1.5 points (+175)
The Colorado Avalanche are essentially an all-star team and have remained the Stanley Cup favorites throughout the season. However, they have been missing one of their superstars for quite some time in Gabriel Landeskog, and now more recently they have lost Nazem Kadri. This puts the goalscoring in the hands of the very capable Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar. He may still be young at the age of 23, but Makar has more than made a name for himself. With his 75 points in 66 games, he’s quickly becoming one of the league’s best defensemen.
Makar is currently entering this matchup with the Jets on a two-game pointless streak. While that may not sound like much, that is something that he has experienced just three other times this entire season. That in itself proves how great he has been. Now without Landeskog and Kadri, Makar will be needed even more and will almost certainly come out hungry to avenge two individually disappointing performances. He’s recorded multiple points a ridiculous 22 times this season. One of those outings was his last time facing the Jets; there’s no reason to doubt his ability to repeat that dominance.
Be sure to check out our full game preview for Colorado Avalanche vs Winnipeg Jets
Carter Verhaeghe over 0.5 assists (+165)
The Florida Panthers have been an absolute wagon this season and their offense has been absurd. They are the only teams averaging over four goals per game and are nearing five goals per game at home. It’s almost laughable how easily they can put up three goals in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, nearly everyone in their top three lines has been feasting. One skater that is often overlooked when trying to find value with Panthers’ props is Carter Verhaeghe.
It goes without saying that skating alongside Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau provides nearly infinite scoring opportunities. Even Verhaeghe’s point prop has value; however, honing in on the assist prop specifically provides even more. He certainly has the ability to score, but the majority of his points have been assists (30 of 51). Analyzing his trends a bit further, he barely averages two shots per game. They’ll also be facing Buffalo tonight, a team they just played five nights ago. Verhaeghe recorded an assist in that one. Let’s trust him to throw out an apple once again.
Be sure to check out our full game preview for Buffalo Sabres vs Florida Panthers
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