We have a nice eight-game main slate on Tuesday, so we have plenty of opportunities to look for exploitable prop bets by leveraging our NHL Models and Trends tool at Fantasy Labs, as well as the Bet Labs database.
Here are three props I’m eyeing tonight, with the first puck drop at 7 p.m. ET.
Wild C Eric Staal
The pick: Under 2.5 shots on goal (-140)
For the second straight day, I’m on the Under 2.5 shot prop for Staal, and the juice is even more appealing than yesterday against Nashville (-170).
The Coyotes have allowed the fewest shots per game in the league (23.3) and the Wild own our second-lowest expected Corsi for. As we talked about today on Inside the Lab, going short on Minnesota shooting volume is something I will have interest in until proven otherwise.
Lightning RW Nikita Kucherov
The pick: Under 3.0 shots on goal (-130)
Carolina has allowed the third-fewest shots per game to start the season, averaging a paltry 25.0 shots against over its first six games.
Our proprietary shot prediction metric in models has Kucherov pegged for only 2.2 shots on goal today, below his 3.44 average over the past year.
His drastic volume-based underperformance in the short term (only 1.67 shots per game, 48th percentile) will likely skew back to his long-term mean at some point, but the tough matchup keeps the under in play for at least one more night.
Sabres LW Jeff Skinner
The pick: Under 3.0 shots on goal (-115)
This is a tough one for me because I’m almost always long on a high-volume shooter like Skinner who ranks in the 95th percentile in shots per game over the past year. That said, given the line at -115, the under looks like a solid value for a guy that has averaged only 2.4 shots per game over the past month.
It’s also a miserable matchup on the road against the Golden Knights, a team that has allowed the second-fewest shots per game (24.8) this year. Unsurprisingly, the Sabres have our lowest expected Corsi for on the entire slate.
