Detroit Red Wings vs. Toronto Maple Leafs 11/8

Overview

Primetime, with the lights shining on the Wings, man, did they show up and ball out. Granted the Hawks are definitely a weaker team in the league, but the Wings dominated them for three periods. Larkin’s been spectacular recently, as he scored his 8th goal of the season. Even though they got outshot by Chicago, I believe the Wings doubled them in scoring opportunities. Once again, Cam Talbot played solid, stopping 28 of 29 shots for his 4th win of the season. Another bright spot was seeing some other players notch a couple of goals, which has been a big struggle for the Wings this year. Big Joe Veleno got his first of the season, along with Copp netting an empty netter for his 5th. This has now been two back-to-back games of dominating their opponents, so I’m hoping they can make November the reason they make the playoffs.

Unfortunately, we are down in the hole now after losing another parlay. Kane had plenty of chances to get a point as he finished +2 on the night. Larkin and Debrincat had no issues getting a couple of points, so I was disappointed that Kaner couldn’t help the 4 unit play. Although we are pretty close to hitting a good one as both of the last two parlays have only missed by one leg. Red Wings moneyline has been carrying us a little, so tonight we might have to hop off the parlays and mix in some straight bets. The game tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs presents a nice opportunity for some stats from the boys so we’ll see.

Prediction

The Leafs and Wings rivalry has been a good one over the years, with a couple of outdoor games in Ann Arbor and Ontario. It’s also a little bit of a family matchup for me as my Uncle played for the Leafs and now works with their alumni, so this game presents some bragging rights at Christmas dinner. Unfortunately for the Leafs, they will be without star forward Auston Matthews, as he has been placed on injured reserve. This kind of sucks because I like to play every team at full strength and because I have Auston on my fantasy team, but this doesn’t mean this Leafs squad won’t be solid. Toronto is currently 3 points ahead of the Wings, so a win tonight would be huge in building momentum. With Cam Talbot getting back-to-back wins, I expect him to remain in the crease tonight. The lines will remain the same as well, with young guns Berggren and Kasper playing along veteran Tarasenko. Look for that line to pick up some opportunities tonight.

As mentioned before, I am going to be mixing things up tonight by doing a couple of straight bets and a little player prop parlay. I love the way the Wings have been playing so I’m going to stick with them to stay hot. The first pick tonight is the Red Wings to win in regulation. This juices the moneyline a little bit, and we haven’t seen many extra minutes in Wings games this year. To bounce off of that, I’ll also be picking them to win by more than one goal. Once again, this is just some extra juice, since empty nets always make this possible if they have a late lead. Finally, I will be taking Marco Kasper to put one in the back of the net tonight. I’m assuming if that line scores, he will be the one to get it, so for only half a unit, I don’t mind trusting this underrated third line.

Straight

Red Wings 3-Way ML +250 (1u)

Red Wings -1.5 +375 (1u)

Kasper o0.5 Goals +500 (0.5u)