At Bet365, as of Thursday afternoon, USA is a gaudy -380 with a total of 6 goals and the under favored at -120. The puck line has USA at -1.5 goals and -140.
The 4 Nations Face-Off continues Thursday night with heavily favored Team USA and Team Finland dropping the puck in Montreal.
The tournament got underway in thrilling fashion on Wednesday when Mitch Marner scored in overtime and Sidney Crosby had three assists to lift Canada to a 4-3 win against Sweden. After falling behind 3-1 after two periods, the Swedes roared back in the third period to force overtime.
At Bet365, as of Thursday afternoon, USA is a gaudy -380 with a total of 6 goals and the under favored at -120. The puck line has Americans at -1.5 goals and -140.
Don't be so quick to lay such a big price, as we saw last night, anything is possible and you don't want to get caught holding a ticket with plenty of juice. And if it goes to overtime, your puck line dies.
Connor Hellebuyck is good, but he's also started 43 of Winnipeg's 57 games this season - 75.4% of its games - and finds himself in a goalie battle.
Instead, as we did yesterday with some stats that paid off, let's skate inside the numbers with this game:
+140 – That's the odds for Auston Matthews being an anytime goal scorer. He wouldn't be a bad choice considering the United States had three of the top 10 point-producers from 2021-22 through 2023-24, that being Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk and J.T. Miller).
+240 - That said, you're getting better odds with Jack Eichel, whose 69 points are tied for sixth in the NHL right now. And 50 of those are assists. You can get Eichel at a huge price to register two points, and it wouldn't be shocking to see him with at least two assists, if not maybe a goal and an assist in the opener.
+450 - Aleksander Barkov doesn't rank among the league leaders in points - he's tied for 34th with 52 points - but he's getting tremendous value to score at least one goal. He was a vital member of last year's Stanley Cup championship team, sharing the Panthers' lead with 22 points in the playoffs. This tournament could spark something him tonight, especially when you consider he has four points against Hellebuyck this season, with a goal and three assists.
+650 - The biggest longshot to score a goal to consider has to be Erik Haula, who has the most career points among active Finnish players selected outside the first two rounds of the NHL Draft (per NHL PR). He has been representing his country since 2011 and would love nothing more than to help his team defeat the Americans. Haula has just three goals against Hellebuyck during his career, but they haven't seen one another this season. Haula is worth a look.