Joel Dorcas | March 10th, 2020
A decent offering of eight games awaits us tonight. Finding value appears to be a bit of a challenge as my wite up includes just two games. Not to say there aren’t other games that you should target. Carolina at Detroit is fully in play for obvious reasons, Nashville at Montreal should also be considered as the Preds are all of the sudden a team on the rise. That leaves us with Lightning/Leafs and Islanders/Canucks. Here we go again, time to pencil in some Ice Picks!
Tampa Bay Lightning (43-20-6) at Toronto Maple Leafs (35-25-9)
The Maple Leafs and Bolts will tangle for a third time this season Tuesday night in Toronto with the series split at one apiece. As of Monday night, the implied combined total of 6.5 goals is the highest on the board according to covers.com. The Leafs were 4-3 winners Feb. 25th. Toronto is coming off a 0-2-1 California road trip having scored just three goals. The mini-goal drought has knocked them down from first to fourth in league scoring(3.41).
The Lightning are going through some struggles of their own. They have secured just four wins in there previous 10 games. Lots of goals being scored in these games though. Eight of the 10 have seen the total go over the suggested number.
When the Bolts are scoring there is a good chance Nikita Kucherov is being involved. Kucherov has recorded a point in 22 of his last 23 games. All toll he has 16G, 19A (35pts) during the span, In two games agaisnt Toronto this year, Kucherov has three goals and two assists.
Defenseman Victor Hedman is questionable with a lower-body injury. If he sits, start Mikhail Sergachev with confidence. He will step into the number one D man roll on a lethal powerplay that has gone 5-for-13 in the last five games. (TOR owns the 22nd ranked penalty kill, 77.3%). Sergachev keeps getting better this season and the coaching staff have awarded him with more ice time. He is averaging 23.5 minutes per game over his last five games while notching a goal and three assists.
New York Islanders (35-23-9) at Vancouver Canucks (35-27-6)
The Islanders have fallen off a cliff lately having won only two games in their last 10. They are 0-3-3 in their last six and have given up a brutal average of 4.00 goals per contest (Something we are not accustomed to seeing out of Long Island).
Vancouver hasn’t been much better, they have three victories in their last 10. Despite this, the Canucks are averaging a very respectable 3.30 goals per game while New York is producing just 2.20 goals per game.
Pin-pointing offense revolves around J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson, and to a lesser extent, defenseman Quinn Hughes. All three are focal points with the man-advantage. Pettersson has been the usual steady force, he has two goals and three assists in his last five games.
J.T. Miller has been fantastic for Van city this season. Over his last 12 games, he has 6G, 11A and has averaged over 20 minutes per game. Miller leads all Canuck forwards in ice time this season.
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