NHL Best Bets, Score Predictions for Friday Apr. 2

VegasInsider Staff Sports Betting Expert

10 minute read

NHL Daily Free Picks & Predictions

VegasInsider.com NHL expert Matt Blunt provides his score predictions and best bets for one NHL game on Friday, Apr. 2, 2021.

St. Louis Blues vs. Colorado Avalanche

• Money-Line Odds: St. Louis +182; Colorado -215
• Total (Over-Under): 5.5

Score Prediction: St. Louis 3 Colorado 2

Best Bet: Blues ML

Best option for those that want to follow this is likely to wait until late in the day to officially fire, as the current form couldn't be any different for these two teams right now, and Colorado's going to get plenty of support regardless.

The Avalanche have been just dominating teams as of late, winning 10 of 12 overall and doing so in dominant fashion. Colorado's last outing was the 9-3 victory over Arizona, but it was also the ninth time in those 10 victories that the Avalanche have won by multiple goals.

In nearly every statistical area, advanced or not, Colorado's just been putting up scorching numbers. It's gotten to the point where there is significant sentiment in the market that it's hard for Avalanche lines to be priced too high right now, and I am sure this Avalanche line will get similar treatment in getting steeper.

So you've got this Avalanche team that can do no wrong right now, priced cheap on a nightly basis in the eyes of some, hosting a St. Louis team that can't seem to get anything right at the moment. It can feel like the hand is almost forced to go contrarian here.

St. Louis has lost four in a row and nine of 11 coming into this game, and just lost both games at home to the Ducks when they were -200 home chalk themselves. But this is a Blues team that even with the recent struggles, hasn't really changed my perspective on how I view them.

Look to fade them at home when they are overvalued against the lesser teams in this division, and look to play on them when they are undervalued against the top teams. Should the typical Colorado support come in here, the price on St. Louis will quickly reach a point where they become undervalued, and from a situational/recent form standpoint, nobody's going to want to have any significant interest in taking the Blues here.

Put it all together and it's an easy contrarian spot to take – especially when the history of the last meeting (8-0 Colorado) gets brought up as more Avalanche support.

Even in the situation where Colorado continually is priced short as that's just how good they are, I'm not sure the overall perspective on this team can get much higher, and the opposite is probably true with St. Louis.

Really nothing more than a situation where buying low on the Blues and selling high on the Avalanche in this spot, as it feels like there is too big of a disconnect between perception and reality in the market for both of these teams.

Don't get me wrong, Colorado deserves all of this praise that they are currently getting. But the more the idea of them being some sort of 'unbeatable' team gets floated around, the more I'm looking to sell on teams in those spots.

For all of the Blues struggles this year, they are still 12-7 SU overall away from home, and opened up the season in Game 1 as a +129 road dog in Colorado. That was a 4-1 win for the Blues before they suffered that 8-0 beatdown, and getting the same team at better than +180 this time still feels like too large of an adjustment even with recent form taken into account.

St. Louis wins this game closer to 40% of the time in my view, not the mid-30's percentage this line currently implies, a number that's only going to get further skewed in that direction when the large support likely coming on the Colorado side hits the board.

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