Friday NHL Bets: Carolina Hurricanes vs. San Jose Sharks, Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Columbus Blue Jackets

Friday NHL Bets: Carolina Hurricanes vs. San Jose Sharks, Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Columbus Blue Jackets

I am not super crazy about this small slate especially so early in the season (the first week or two of the season tend to be a little fishy as we have already seen) however I still see some solid spots for action and I am ready to get after it. I definitely like other plays and have more leans/reads than I’m going to be writing about today but until I see each team get a few more games under their belts and have some actual data and splits to go off of I'm going to keep things light. I am a very high volume handicapper when it comes to puck; the volume will come and there will be plenty of it but I am not going to attempt to generate volume on a four-game slate in week one of the season.

NHL Parlay Prediction

Tonight we are backing two of the NHL's elites, plain and simple. Andrei Vasilevskiy looked sharp as ever in the season opener against New York and that was a 1-1 hockey game in the third. The final tally of 3-1 does not do the performance justice. Tampa Bay is without question a proven, elite team and they have been to the cup three years in a row. That is a lot of bonus hockey, I am not worried about a loss to one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference in the season opener who wanted to beat them very badly on home ice. Columbus won the last meeting between these two but Tampa Bay has been the victor of five of the last six. Look for them to rebound this evening against Columbus backup Daniil Tarasov.

Our second leg this evening is the cross-conference clash between the San Jose Sharks and the Carolina Hurricanes. San Jose is already 0-2 on the season after dropping both international games to Nashville and I understand this spot is a big one for them in regard to motivation but other than that I cannot find a single reason to believe they win this game.

It is an incredibly tough spot for them to face one of the best teams in the league. Carolina is better than they were last season which is incredible when you really think about it. The depth is even deeper than it was last season and I know they took a second to get going the other night but they handled business easily in the end.

You could play these both in regulation individually but I believe they both win anyways so I am running with the parlay at plus money here.

NHL Parlay Pick

• Carolina/ Tampa Bay MLP +119 (Bet $100 to win $119)

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