(27-41  +0.03 units)

Golden Knights/Canadiens:

This interconference matchup between the Las Vegas Golden Knights and the Montreal Canadiens will be an interesting one, for a couple reasons.

The first interesting point that may not seem too exciting is the fact that both teams have been missing key offensive contributors, and in my opinion, this is a bigger blow to the Canadiens. Montreal has been having a really hard time finding the back of the net despite dominating shots and possession in a lot of games. Only in their last game against Philly, did they score four goals for the first time in 2020.

The second interesting points are the current situations. Montreal has been falling out of contention, and things do not look good lately for the Habs. Vegas on the other hand is still in the thick of all playoff conversations, but made an interesting move to fire Head Coach Gerard Gallant; the man who was responsible for establishing the unique aggressive forecheck system, and who also led the team to its first two successful seasons.

However, one thing that I did notice in Pete DeBoer’s early takeover of this team is the fact that Thursday night in Ottawa was the most reserved I have ever seen Vegas play since they came into this league. Despite still being able to score four goals on a weak Senators team, The Golden Knights slowed the game down drastically to the point that they looked like the San Jose Sharks of the previous years. Against a better coached and structured Montreal team, I expect there to be a lot of neutral zone focus here.

Montreal has also seen five straight UNDERs, and this is not only a result of their lack of scoring, but also Claude Julien’s defensive minded approach. I really expect a low scoring one here.

UNDER 6 -112  2*