With this many games, my first tendency is to look at each game and call out a gut instinct winner (straight up, no PL, no scores in mind). For that, I scanned the games and said to myself - Leafs, Penguins, Devils, Bruins, Hurricanes, Senators, Lightning, Aves, Wild, Stars, Blackhawks, Oilers, Kings, Canucks, Kraken.
Malcom Gladwell's Blink had me thinking I do a monster parlay with this! But.... Absolutely not, sooooo let's try to take as good of a look at some of these as we can. When looking at games I'll usually look at recent matchups between the teams; some teams seem to own other teams regardless of current lineup or home v. away, it's a weird sports psychology thing in my mind, this weird construct I have of how teams play each other overall... thank you for bearing with me during all of my ADHD digressions. I'll check overall and recent history, and then recent player stats, check who is in and out of the lineups, does one team seem to have any momentum, are some players trying to prove something, are there any playoff implications.... lots of general things I'll look at in no particular order and try to form macro view opinions on games. ^^ Insights into my wonky cranium for the process^^
Maple Leafs v. Rangers - While no playoff or standings implication exists here, one could argue the Leafs have more to play for with top players hunting for numbers. Both teams have the ability to tweak lines, play with things, or even look towards some younger players that don't see much ice time since this is the time they can allow for that. Some top players could be sitting, but the biggest theme tonight is everyone on both sides stay healthy and ready for playoffs. With Woll projected to start for the Leafs and Shesterkin expected for the Rangers, I think Shesterkin will be the strongest part of the Rangers game tonight while the Leafs top players fuel for some numbers will be theirs. I think the Leafs win here (lean on the under, something like 3-1/4-2 final score).
Penguins v. CBJ - Not a fun game to look at, I am shocked the Pens couldn't get it together for 60 minutes against the Blackhawks, maybe they collectively decided the off-season seemed more enticing than a spot to impress Lord Stanley himself, only they know and they'll never tell us **hard shrug while saying that one, make sure you re-read the sentence and shrug at the end, it feels good**. With that being said, I think CBJ have more reason to notttttt push for the W with the tank ship they've hopped on with lottery dreams, that coupled with Hutchinson in net are enough for me to say Pens take this tonight. I'm also not interested in reading anything else about either of these clubs. Only other thought without having to read anything is this is a perfect game to play younger guys, get some ice time for less exposed players during regular season/high priority situations so there will always be more effort from those guys which I would guess will be the wild card factor tonight and/or the reason any outcome is had. Full disclosure I'm not looking into which players those situations might include, so while I admit I do have (even by my own non factual wonky standards) insufficient information to form my outlier opinions I'm going with the Pens here (I don't want to because of the Chicago game, idk man). I think the Pens win here (lean on the over given Hutchinson and his volatility between the pipes, join me on an imaginary ride of seeing a 3-1/4-1/5-2 type Pens win!)
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