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Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Dallas -½ +150 over Washington 

7:00 PM EST. Regulation only. Look at Washington's record and you'd think everything is fine. Look at the way they actually play and you'd wonder how they've won as much as they have. That's the whole bet tonight. The Capitals are near the bottom of the league in five-on-five puck possession time in the offensive end, ranked 26th, which means most nights they are chasing the puck instead of owning it, and chasing the puck is not a way to keep winning hockey games. Wins built on goaltending and finishing while the other team has the puck eventually stop coming, and they tend to stop coming all at once.

Dallas is the other side of that coin. The Stars rank 11th in the league in that same five-on-five offensive-end possession time, a team that spends its nights with the puck and doing something with it, and that's the team you want when the price is a plus number. The goal in hockey is to possess the puck and create chances, and you can only do that in the offensive end, so a top-half possession team against a bottom-six possession team is not a coin flip, it's a mismatch the standings haven't caught up to yet. Washington has been getting away with it, Dallas hasn't needed to get away with anything.

And the market is giving you the plus price to prove it, but only if you take it the right way. Dallas -½ at +150 in regulation means the Stars have to win it in sixty minutes, no overtime safety net, because a tie after regulation is a loser on this ticket. That's fair, and it's the price of getting plus money on the better possession team. A team that owns the puck like Dallas does is the team most likely to be leading late, and a team that has spent all night defending is the team most likely to be out of gas when it matters.

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Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Utah -1½ +180 over Toronto

7:00 PM EST. The Toronto Maple Leafs are finally home after a four-game swing through Western Canada and Seattle, but don't confuse being home with being ready to play. There's a difference between returning to your own building and returning mentally from a road trip. Toronto has Edmonton, Calgary, Seattle and Vancouver in the rearview mirror, with Montreal coming to town Saturday for Hockey Night in Canada. That matchup will dominate the conversation in Toronto for the next several days. Utah? Not exactly the opponent that gets everyone's blood pumping. This is a lousy scheduling spot for the Leafs, and the timing couldn't be much better for the visitors. The first game home after a lengthy trip is often a dangerous one, particularly when a much more attractive opponent is waiting in the wings.

There's also a compelling reason to like Utah that has nothing to do with the schedule. Utah ranks third in the NHL in even-strength puck possession time, while Toronto sits 24th. That's an enormous disparity, and it's not some obscure statistic invented by a guy with a spreadsheet and too much free time. Teams that spend more time with the puck spend less time chasing it, defending, and relying on their goaltender to bail them out. Utah has been controlling the flow of games, while Toronto has been getting results without consistently controlling the play. That arrangement can work for a while, but it's a difficult way to make a living. Against a disciplined opponent that rarely gives away possession, Toronto could spend an uncomfortable amount of this evening watching Utah operate in its end.

The interesting part is the price. Utah is already favored on the moneyline, so the oddsmakers aren't exactly hiding which team it prefers. However, laying a goal and a half brings us back to +180, and that's where the opportunity lies. Obviously, winning by two is a different proposition from simply winning, and an overtime victory won't cash this ticket. But there's more than one route to a two-goal margin, including the empty-netter when Toronto is trailing late and desperately trying to force overtime. We're getting nearly 2-to-1 on a team that controls possession against an opponent returning from a long trip with a Saturday night date against Montreal looming. Toronto has the bigger names and the brighter spotlight. Utah has the better situation, the puck-possession advantage, and a price worth taking.

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