Sportsinteraction

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

Calgary +117 over Seattle 

10:00 PM EST. The Flames opened the season 0-5-0, and that start branded them in the market's mind as a weak hockey team. Win-loss records in hockey are the most misleading of any of the four major sports, and Calgary is the proof of it. Since that start they have won seven of t0, yet here they are still priced like a bottom-feeder, a plus-money dog on the road against an 8-5 Seattle team. The market has not caught up to what this visitor actually is.

The underlying numbers say the two records are backwards. Calgary ranks 12th in the league in five-on-five shot-attempt share, which is just a fancy way of saying they seldom get outplayed. Seattle ranks dead last, 32nd. It is the same story in expected goals, where Calgary sits in the top third and Seattle sits near the bottom, and the same again in offensive-zone time, where Calgary ranks 14th and Seattle 29th. One team spends its nights with the puck in the other end. The other team spends its nights chasing it.

So why does Seattle have the better record? Finishing, and finishing is the least sticky thing in this sport. Seattle ranks first in the league in high-danger finishing while Calgary ranks last, and that single gap explains everything: Calgary is tied for last in actual goals share while Seattle sits near the top, even though Calgary controls play and Seattle does not. That is not a talent gap, it is a luck gap, and luck gaps close. Seattle's 8-5 record is built on burying chances at a rate no team sustains, and Calgary's 7-8 record is weighed down by the exact opposite. At +116 we are getting paid to bet the team that controls the puck against the team that is just finishing its chances for now. We already cashed Calgary once this week at a plus price, and there is no reason to come off them now. 

Sportsinteraction

Play:

Sportsinteraction

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

San Jose +137 over Los Angeles

10:00 PM EST. Somebody in the pricing department is still charging rent on the Kings' reputation, because the team actually showing up at Crypto.com Arena tonight is 4-7-2 with 10 points and a pulse you need a stethoscope to find. San Jose rolls in at 7-8-1 with 15 points, two points out of a wild-card spot, owning the better record, the better goalie and the best player on the ice — and the market has the nerve to hang +137 on them like they're a charity case. The Kings are playing bettrtr, yes but they're overpreiced here/

Start in the crease, where this game gets decided. Darcy Kuemper is stopping pucks at a .878 clip with a 3.65 goals-against average, numbers that rank him somewhere between a screen door and 47th in the league, and Los Angeles simply cannot score enough to bail that out — 36 goals in 13 games, 28th in the league, converting a pathetic 9.9 percent of their shots. San Jose's net, meanwhile, is in honest hands: Yaroslav Askarov (probable tonight) sits at a .901 save percentage and a 2.92 GAA across 10 starts, and even backup Alex Nedeljkovic's .899 beats what Kuemper has been serving up. The Kings need low-event, grind-it-out hockey to survive, and their own starter keeps turning every game into a fire drill.

Then look at what's left of the Los Angeles lineup, because the injured list reads like their actual roster. Kevin Fiala is out with a leg injury, Mats Zuccarello is out, Jakub Dvorak is out, Alex Turcotte and Jan Jeník are out, and Adrian Kempe one of the few forwards left who can actually finish — is day-to-day. That leaves Artemi Panarin, all 13 points of him, trying to drag a patchwork top six that has a rookie riding shotgun on the first line and Corey Perry, who has been collecting NHL paycheques since the invention of the iPod, holding down the second. San Jose counters with the real article: Macklin Celebrini, 16 points and the puck on his stick all night, tilting the ice at a 58.2 percent Corsi clip while Will Smith (a team-high six goals) and Tyler Toffoli flank a top six that actually has its name tags in the right places, plus Jacob Trouba quietly putting up 10 points from the blue line.

This is a California slap-fight where one fighter showed up with both hands taped and the other showed up with a note from his doctor. The Sharks are younger, faster, healthier, better in net, better at the top of the lineup, and they have the single most dangerous player in the building wearing teal. Los Angeles will muck it up, lean on Panarin, and pray Kuemper sees the puck through traffic  and prayers are not a defensive system. San Jose skates into their barn, takes the two points and makes the oddsmakers look like they priced this one off last year's standings.

 Sportsinteraction

Play: