Let’s dive into the top betting angles from tonight’s lone NHL contest featuring the Los Angeles Kings visiting the scuffling Vancouver Canucks. For more of the best NHL bets and NHL props, be sure to check out the OddsShopper tool.
Tonight’s NHL Best Bets For Kings-Canucks
Adrian Kempe Over 3.5 Shots on Goal +154/Anytime Goalscorer +186:
Predicting shots on goal props is not entirely just picking who is hitting what number X percent of the time, as using some knowledge of a player’s mentality, skillset, and role on a team can outweigh recent results and offer up juicier prices.
Similar to our take with Kyle Connor yesterday, Kempe has averaged a lower number of shots on goal over his last handful of games, but analyzing his play over a larger sample, he is going to average closer to 4 shots on goal than we have seen thus far considering his stellar skillsets.
To look at a larger sample, Kempe has hit four shots on goal in 14 of his last 32 contests, with an average of 3.62 in those contests. At a price of +154 this wager only needs to hit 42% of the time to be profitable and based off of this sample it could be argued versus any average opponent Kempe will still be profitable to this number.
Hoeever Vancouver has actually regressed defensively since the start of November the worst defensive sides in the league and makes them a great target for these bets.
The Canucks has allowed an 11th worst xGA/60 of 3.32 in eight November contests, and an average of 33.35 SA/60. The bodies simply do not seem to be on the roster to clean up it’s play in that regard, which makes it seem likely these poor results are not a fluke.
Los Angeles top line of Adrian Kempe, Anze Kopitar, and Gabriel Vilardi owns a 59.8 xGF% share at even strength and should control play at a high rate in this contest.
Kempe is fantastic at driving down the wing and creating offensive chances, which bodes well against a Canucks side with realistically just a single plus defender off the rush being Quinn Hughes.
Thatcher Demko has been confirmed as the Canucks starting goaltender for the contest and has allowed -10.3 goals saved above expected this season, with a .874 save %.
Demko will likely find better form moving forward, but Vancouver is allowing a ton of goals against in his starts, and even a better outing likely means three or more Kings goals tonight.
At +186 there’s good value to look for one of those to come from Kempe, who is a very capable scorer and netted 35 goals a season ago and remains in an excellent role.
Ilya Mikheyev Over 2.5 Shots on Goal +168:
Vancouver paid a pretty hefty fee this summer to bring in Mikheyev (4.75 million x 4), so it’s not surprising to see that the Canucks are now trying to find a bigger role for Mikheyev he settles in after a late start to the season due to injury.
Mikheyev skated on Elias Pettersson’s wing versus Buffalo, and remained there at today’s morning skate, and also remained on the Canucks second powerplay unit. Those improved roles is the most important part of this wager, but even prior to his improved role the data suggests this is a strong play.
Mikheyev has averaged 2.5 shots on goal per game over his last 10 outings and has cashed the over on this line in exactly half of those outings.
So, considering at this price this play is profitable at a 40% hit rate, and that Mikheyev is now in an improved role, this is a strong play which will pay off over a large sample at this number and if Mikheyev’s role remains the same.
