The fourth week of the National Lacrosse League is their lightest one of the season, with just three games across two days. I have bets for one of the Friday games and the lone Saturday game. Let’s take a look y best bets for NLL Week 4.
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Panther City Lacrosse Club vs. Toronto Rock
| Toronto Odds | -230 |
| Panther City Odds | +170 |
| Total | 22.5 |
| Time | Friday · 8 p.m. ET |
| TV | ESPN+ |
Odds via bet365. Sign up with Action's bet365 bonus code to get bonus bets for all the upcoming National Lacrosse League matches!
The Toronto Rock travel to Fort Worth, Texas to face Panther City on Friday night. Toronto enters as a 2.5-point favorite at most sportsbooks and the total is sitting at 22.5.
The Rock enter with a 1-0 record after defeating the Philadelphia Wings two weeks ago, 11-7. Meanwhile, Panther City squandered a one-goal lead in the final seconds of regulation before being upset by Las Vegas in overtime, 11-10. The Rock are the better and deeper team, but both defenses have played really well in limited action. According to LaxMetrics, Panther City ranks third with a defensive shooting percentage of 13.7%. While the Rock offense has a ton of weapons, I worry that goaltender Nick Damude and this Panther City defense will limit their amount of quality chances. While I still expect Toronto to win, I don’t think there is a big enough edge to bet them as 2.5-point favorites.
The total also feels right at 22.5 when considering not only Panther City’s defense, but Panther City’s struggles on offense so far this season and I don’t expect them to fare any better against one of the best defensive units in the league led by Rock goalie Nick Rose. That said, I am betting a player prop in this game.
Last year's NLL Rookie of the Year Jonathan Donville is the star of this offense, but I think Toronto will be more than prepared to limit his touches and force Panther City to try and score in other ways. Donville’s points prop is currently 4.5 and he’s stayed under five points in 11 of 20 career games. While Donville always has the ability to put up points, I think he’ll struggle to do so against Nick Rose and Co. on Friday night. While the odds have moved from +110 to -105, the value is still there to bet Donville to stay under 4.5 points on bet365.
Pick: Jonathan Donville Under 4.5 Points
Rochester Knighthawks vs. Vancouver Warriors
| Rochester Odds | -230 |
| Vancouver Odds | +170 |
| Total | 24.5 |
| Time | Saturday · 7 p.m. ET |
| TV | ESPN+ |
Odds via bet365. Sign up with Action's bet365 bonus code to get bonus bets for all the upcoming National Lacrosse League matches!
The lone Saturday night game features the Vancouver Warriors traveling to Rochester to take on the 2-0 Knighthawks. The Knighthawks are favored by as many as 2.5 points—a rarity much like in the NHL—and the total is 24.5 across sportsbooks.
We profited from betting an undervalued Rochester two weeks ago, but I think this is the spot to fade the Knighthawks. Despite getting Vancouver off a big 15-7 win against Georgia, the Warriors are still being undervalued and match up well against a Rochester team that has been inefficient.
Vancouver’s defense plays very aggressive which could give Rochester some issues. We saw the Knighthawks struggle at points when teams played them out wide last season and Curt Malawsky’s Vancouver team should be able to neutralize one of Rochester’s biggest strengths: loose balls.
Rochester’s offense may have impressed in the box score, but their offense has been careless and relied heavily on second and third chances off of loose balls—particularly against Saskatchewan. According to LaxMetrics, their possession termination ratio of 4.23 ranks 12th out of 15 teams in the NLL and their 31 turnovers last game were the most by any team in a single game so far.
Meanwhile, Aaron Bold and the Vancouver defense put together a great defensive effort against one of the deeper offenses in the league, forcing arguably one of the best players in the league in Lyle Thompson to turn the ball over eight times. They held Georgia to just seven goals and even more impressively held the Swarm to just one goal in the fourth quarter. Following a second re-watch of their first game, I thought the defense played particularly well against Panther City too, despite the loss.
Furthermore, the Vancouver offense showed that they should be able to keep pace with Rochester on Saturday night, getting goals from six different players last week. While I don’t expect Rochester to have as many defensive lapses as Georgia did last week, I’ve seen enough from this Vancouver offense that makes me think they have greater than a 37% chance to win this game outright.
I recommend betting a full unit on Vancouver to cover the 1.5-point spread (+115 on ESPN Bet and BetMGM) and 0.5 units on the moneyline (+170 on bet365.)
Picks: Vancouver Warriors +1.5 (1 unit) & Vancouver Warriors Moneyline (0.5 unit)
