NHL Playoff Picks and Predictions for Monday August 24

VegasInsider Staff Sports Betting Expert

2 minute read

NHL Underdog Best Bet

• Matchup: Dallas vs Colorado
• TV-Time: 9:45 p.m. ET

Dallas ML +132

You never like to see anyone go down to injury like Avalanche G Phillip Grubauer did in Game 1, but that's the reality for Colorado right now and if Francouz has to go the rest of the way in this series, I see little to no reason to jump off the Stars after having them in Game 1.

The entire betting world was singing Colorado's praises and anointing them the easy winners prior to this series, and while many will be lazy and fall back on the Grubauer injury as the excuse, all that is is selective memory in conveniently “forgetting” that Dallas was actually winning the game at the time Grubauer exited and had beat him for three goals.

But nobody ever wants to admit they made a bad selection these days, it's always “the team/refs” fault for those right? It's not like we don't know that the Stars could have kept lighting up Grubauer had he stayed in. But the injury excuse is a nice crutch for those that feel they need it.

Grubauer was getting lit up (3 goals allowed on just 10 shots) and in my view, and likely in many's view, Francouz is a clear downgrade in net for the Avalanche already. Remember, Dallas swept the regular season series with the Avalanche (4-0) before falling to Colorado in the round robin and it was easy to right that off as relatively meaningless since it happened eons ago.

Well, the Stars proved all those wins weren't as fluky as the betting market was led to believe, and with a little bit of “good” luck from their perspective in not having to see Colorado's starting goalie for the foreseeable future, I firmly believe the Stars run away with this series now.

NHL Prop Best Bet

• Matchup: New York Islanders vs Philadelphia
• TV-Time: NBCSN, 7:00 p.m. ET

Over 1.5 goals in the 1st period (-106)

The Islanders have earned a lot of chatter in the market about the 1st period props that are offered and how often they've cashed in the bubble. From the total goals to goals in the 1st 10 minutes, if you've taken the 'under' or 'no' on those props in Islanders games from the start in this bubble you've done quite well.

But now they start a series with a Flyers team who had no issues with playing track meet type games with New York throughout the year. Philly might want to change that up a bit considering they did go 0-3 SU against the Islanders in the regular season, but with scores of 5-3, 4-3, and 5-3 again, I do think we may see more goals than most expect in this series.

It starts with the opening frame of the series tonight, as in the 1st period of those three regular season contests we had goal totals of 5, 2, and 3 respectively. Pair that history with the market mindset for the Islanders playoff games being completely opposite of that perspective, and you get a nice play I've got no problem jumping on.

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