NHL Best Bet: Monday May 2nd

Lord Stanley has put his cup on display again and the NHL Playoffs have officially gotten started! Our resident NHL expert Ej Garr had a terrific regular season and now he plans on carrying over that success to the post-season with a 1sr period tip from the Carolina Boston affair.

NHL Playoffs Best Bet May 2

Carolina vs Boston: 1st Period Under 1.5 Goals

Odds as of 9 am May 2, 2022. Odds may now differ.

Carolina Hurricanes vs Boston Bruins Best Bet

May 3, 00:05 UK time

The Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins will be the first two teams to take the ice in the post-season which now means it’s Stanley Cup or bust. These two teams recently met in the NHL post-season back in the 2020 campaign when the Bruins took out the Canes in 5 games..

On top of home-ice advantage in this series, the Hurricanes were a perfect 3 – 0 against the Bruins from their 3 regular-season meetings. Not only did the Canes win all 3 games but they handed the Bs their ass in all 3 affairs taking wins of 3 – 0, 7 – 1, and 6 – 0. Yes, that means the Bruins scored only a single goal in the series and it’s results like those that give the Canes the edge in this series.

The line setters are not pointing to a heavy favorite to take this series, however, as you see Carolina at 1.85 and Boston at 1.95 to move on to the next round of the playoffs. Both teams are certainly in good form coming into the post-season as the Canes are riding a 6-game win streak into this home game to start the series.
Boston was towing a 4-game win streak into their final game of the regular season against Toronto but the Leafs came away with the 5 – 2 win.

You’ve heard the term defense wins titles? Well, if that’s the case we can just hand the Canes the trophy now! The Hurricanes are ranked #1 in goals allowed, shots allowed, and if you planned on scoring against them on your power play? Yeah, think again, because no one kills the man-advantage better than the Canes (88% PK).

Let’s make no mistake that the Boston defense is just as formidable as the Canes evidenced by the top-4 ranking in plenty of stats. The Bruins rank 3rd in the league allowing holding teams to only 28.7 shots per game although their penalty kill could be improved from 9th in the NHL (81.3%).

The return of David Pastrnak will certainly help the ability of Boston to score and I expect he’ll be back on his normal line with #37 # #63 to start the playoffs. Bergeron, Marchand, and Pastrnak have certainly spent plenty of time alongside each other. DeBrusk has been playing with Marchand and Bergeron over the last month, so we’ll see what direction Bruce Cassidy takes to navigate what could be a long series.

For me, I just see this opening frame as a skate around and Carolina obviously knows how to slow down Boston. I think it’s amazing that this Canes squad has held Boston to 1 goal in 3 meetings so the plan has got to be the same. The best way to beat a hockey team is to not let them score, last I checked!

• Selection: 1st Period Under 1.5 Goals
• Best odds: 2.00 (William Hill)
• Stakes 4/10

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