Toronto Maple Leafs and Team USA captain Auston Matthews enters Thursday riding worst goal drought of the season
The Four Nations Face Off kicks off Wednesday with a pair of matchups including Canada versus Sweden and the United States playing Finland. The elite showcase of the best hockey players in the world should excite all fans of the sport and we've looked up some ways that you can hopefully profit on the event. For bettors, this matchup provides a chance to capitalize on some of our recent strong trends, like our 34-30 record on our last 64 picks and our 16-9 record on our last 25 moneyline picks.
All betting lines are from Bet365 and are subject to change. Hockey is a difficult sport to predict so please gamble responsibly.
Four Nations Face-Off - Team Finland vs Team USA Best Bets:
- Auston Matthews anytime goal (+140)
- Under 6.0 goals (-120)
- Finland +2.5 (-160)
It's hard to exactly predict what will happen as we've never seen these teams assembled before but what we can do is look at players histories and recent performances leading up to this game. For Team USA, the most obvoius choice for this game is the captain in Auston Matthews. The near-70 goal scorer has hit a dry spill heading into the break with six straight games without a goal, marking his worst goal drought of the season.
We were attempting to predict when he would snap the drought before the break but were unsuccessful. We look to ride with the Arizona native again as he'll be squaring off against a beat-up Finland team that is entering this tournament relying on reserves. Their top unit of Niko Mikkola and Esa Lindell should give opposing offences a hard time but the remaining two pairs are built with younger talent as well as a Stanley Cup champion in Olli Maatta.
Finland has always found a way to stay competitive as a unit and this game should be no different as I expect them to push this game to an unexpected under. Their defence should show more grit than people expect as most of their younger players like Henri Jokiharju and Urho Vaakanainen were first round picks. They should be able to hold up their end of the under while Team USA can rely on starting goaltender Connor Hellebuyck to hold up theirs.
The Winnipeg netminder has a solid system in front of him with the Jets and he will again on Thursday. The Michigan native has been otherworldly this season with a 19-2-2 record, a 1.99 goals against average and a .924 save percentage. The United States defence core should be able to limit quality chances with blueliners like Jaccob Slavin and Zach Werenski, who are two of the hottest defencemen in the league and will be split up on different pairings, creating two tough units to get past on one side of the ice.
Not to mention, they will also have a handful of solid two-way forwards that should be able to keep the chances to a minimum like Matthews, Brock Nelson, Vincent Trocheck and Dylan Larkin. I expect a tough, physical game where we may not see a score in the first few minutes like we saw in the fiery Canada versus Sweden matchup on Wednesday. Team USA should come out on top but Finland will keep it close like they always do and cover the puck line at minimum.