Ottawa vs Carolina
The Ottawa Senators are a team that fell short of expectations last season. Alex Debrincat is gone, but Vladimir Tarasenko is in. The boost I like for Ottawa this year is Joonas Korpisalo. Cam Talbot was hurt to start the season last year and Ottawa fell to a 6-12 record. Korpisalo should give Ottawa the boost they need in net to allow them to compete for a chance in the Atlantic Division. The Atlantic has weakened with Boston and Tampa Bay not expected to repeat their success from last year leaving Toronto as the lone powerhouse in the division. Opening Night will be tough for Ottawa going on the road to face a Carolina team that I believe is primed to win the cup. I am not ready to lay the juice on Carolina here at -200, but they very well are a parlay piece should you choose to play them. Carolina has struggled to outplay Ottawa over the past three years, scoring four goals once going 3-3 against them in their last six matchups. While I like Korpisalo for Ottawa as a whole, he has struggled against Carolina during his time in Columbus. Korpisalo has given up a total of 36 goals in 9 games for a GAA of 4.11. Carolina had a disappointing end to their season last year and I expect a full rebound early this year. Tonight should be a favorable start for Carolina at home, so we should expect to be on them in some capacity tonight.
Montreal vs Toronto
There are two teams we play cautiously against Toronto, and that is the aforementioned Ottawa Senators, and tonight’s opponent the Montreal Canadiens. Montreal has won 6 of the past 10 meetings, but Toronto has won the past two. Montreal made a surprising decision to take Juraj Slafkovsky over Shane Wright as the #1 overall pick for 2022. While Shane Wright hasn’t been playing for the Kraken, Slafkovsky has and has severely underperformed. Montreal will be putting out an AHL-caliber lineup on defense, but have a decent lineup up front. I don’t expect Montreal to be a team that puts up 3 goals a night, but Toronto is a team that would allow it in this rivalry and on opening night. The Leafs are two lines deep and lost Michael Bunting in the offseason. The two lines for the Leafs, however, are elite lines. Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, and John Klingberg are great additions to the Leafs roster and I still believe they are the team to beat in the Atlantic. Tonight is a game that should see goals from both sides. Ilya Samsonov is a good regular-season goalie as I mentioned last year, with Jake Allen on the other side. Tonight’s game should be sloppy by both teams. Expect long paces of play with no action and good goaltending, periods of power plays and sloppy goals, and then a final stretch of play with no action before sweating an empty net goal or two.
Chicago vs Boston
Taylor Hall heads back to Boston tonight and Connor Bedard and the Hawks enter the seasons first back-to-back game. This is a tough first two-game series for Chicago as they face last season’s record-setting President’s Trophy-winner the Boston Bruins. The Bruins will look a little different this year with Patrice Bergeron retiring and Brad Marchand taking over the captaincy. They will also be without the previously mentioned Taylor Hall after they traded him to the Hawks to save cap space. I expect Boston to play a good game tonight against Chicago, but I do not expect them to be a powerhouse team in the league. Linus Ullmark will not come close to having a Vezina-like season this year. Chicago played well last night against Pitt at times, but it was Petr Mrazek who kept the Hawks in that game. Mrazek played an MVP-like game last night. It wasn’t until late in the third that Chicago was able to tie the game and take the lead five minutes later. I expect tonight’s game to be more wide-open and nowhere near the goaltending performances we saw last night. I like Marchand to take hold of his new captaincy and perform at a top level tonight as the catalyst.
