Florida's Sam Reinhart is coming off a 57-goal campaign and has scored in five of his last seven games versus Boston
Monday kicks off the week with a thrilling Game one between the Boston Bruins and the Florida Panthers that is bound to be the most physical second round matchup.
We are starting to heat up with a perfect weekend with no losses and a 11-7 record over our last 18 picks. We hit on all three of our picks from the Bruins Game seven matchup versus Toronto and look to continue the success in the second round.
All betting lines are from BetMGM and are subject to change. Hockey is a difficult sport to predict so please gamble responsibly.
Bet: Panthers Over 3.5 goals (+130), Sam Reinhart anytime goal (+125)
The Panthers enter Game one as a slightly favourite due to home ice advantage and the Bruins just finishing up a gruelling seven game series. It’ll be a closer game than people may expect as the Bruins won all four of their regular season matchups with two of the games needing overtime.
It should be a very close series and will give us an exciting goaltending matchup between Boston’s Jeremy Swayman and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky. Only one of their four matchups this season had six or more goals and should set up for another defensive showdown as the Bruins and Panthers have totalled under six goals in seven of their combined 12 first round games.
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Swayman was a big reason why the Bruins made it past the Maple Leafs and will be expected to continue his success in the second round. However, the 25-year-old netminder has just one win in his career over the Panthers with a 3.69 goals against average and and a save percentage of .875 that may be exposed.
Boston was shellshocked last postseason, when they ran into a goalie controversy between Swayman and Bruins netminder Linus Ullmark, who both struggled to find footing in the first round against a Panthers team that surprised them with a come-from-behind series win.
They will be surprised once again by an aggressive Panthers offense that scored 14 goals over the final three games of their series versus Tampa Bay. The series should see a majority of low-scoring games but the Cats should show up early offensively and take advantage of a tired Bruins team.
They should be lead on offense by Sam Reinhart, who had a breakout season with 57 goals and 94 points that carried over into the first round where he scored three goals. He should see the same success against the Bruins, who he’s scored against in five of their last seven matchups.