Ryan Hodges
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Thursday night in the NHL brings us 11 games, beginning at 7:00 pm ET. There is a little bit of everything tonight with division matchups, inter-conference matchups, playoff rematches, hot teams, cold teams, and everything in between. Even if your team is not suiting up, this will be a great night of hockey with action you will not want to miss.
You can read our NHL predictions for today’s slate, but for now, let’s dive into my NHL prop bets.
Nick Paul over 0.5 points (-120)
The Lightning get a favorable matchup on Thursday night. The Blackhawks have been struggling and thus have been an opponent to target when evaluating player props. The Lightning are 6-3-4 and scoring the NHL’s 4th-most goals per game. They also have the league’s 3rd-best power play. They should be able to take care of business and when they do, look for Nick Paul to be involved.
Nick Paul centers Tampa’s second line and is on the top power-play line. At any time, he will likely be on the ice with some combination of Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov among other solid Lightning players. Paul has consistently been logging over 18 minutes of ice time per game, and is coming off a game on Tuesday in which he had 2 goals on 4 shots. The opportunity for production should be there against a bad Blackhawks team. Nick Paul and the Lightning will be licking their chops for this one.
Leon Draisaitl over 1.5 points (+100)
Something has to give for this Oilers team. In a month, their season expectations went from hoisting the Stanley Cup to wondering if they will even make the playoffs. They very much need a slump-buster and the Sharks should present exactly that. Look for Edmonton’s top players to play with plenty of urgency and run up the score in what should be a lopsided game. That being the case, Leon Draisaitl getting +100 odds to tally 2 points is solid value.
In 11 games played, Draisaitl has 14 points which is crazy that even his over a point per game average is underperforming. That is how good he is. He should be playing like a man possessed on Thursday to do his part in leading the Oilers to a much-needed win. Draisaitl is scary enough as it is and Draisaitl on a mission against a bad team is even scarier. Number 29 should be able to pad his stats tonight against the lowly Sharks.
