Jakob Silfverberg honoured on the video board during the TV timeout (Via: Derek Lee) The Minnesota Wild begin their 2024-25 NHL campaign at home versus the Columbus Blue Jackets. It'll be a game that both teams play with a heavy heart as the Blue Jackets will be playing without star winger Johnny Gaudreau, who tragically passed away this past offseason. I t'll be a very hard game for the Blue Jackets and will likely affect every player on an emotional level. Their matchup against the Wild Thursday night presents a solid addition to the Pad Stacking challenge. If you aren’t familiar, the Pad Stacking Challenge is an open betting strategy that uses the concept of building our bank and rolling over our profits. We do this by stacking our winnings through well-researched picks given out daily that will hopefully build our bank. We've seen epic runs of the challenge last season with our biggest hot streak see our bank total reach hundreds of dollars like our $325 bank build at the end of April. We won on our first pick of the season yesterday when Juraj Slafkovsky found the scoresheet and brought our bank total from $10 to $18 which we hope to grow on Thursday. All betting lines are from Bet365 and are subject to change. Hockey is a difficult sport to predict so please gamble responsibly. Bet: Blue Jackets +1.5 (-120) This game looks like it shouldn't be close as the Blue Jackets finished bottom four in the league last season with a 27-43-12 record. They are certainly not a great team and they've lost key pieces with captain Boone Jenner expected to be out for an extended peroid of time with a upper-body injury. Columbus's top six are one of the worst in the league as it's predominately made of mostly very young prospects and older veterans like James van Riemsdyk and Sean Monahan. It makes the pick on this game an easy slam dunk for the Wild to blow them out with the Action Network [https://www.actionnetwork.com/nhl/public-betting] reporting that 94 per cent of the bets on the game are for Minnesota to win. I have to go against the public on this one as it feels like a game that will surprise everyone with the Blue Jackets playing with extra effort for the memory of their teammate and friend Johnny Gaudreau. That additional effort from the Blue Jackets should at least help them stay competitive in this game and hopefully cover our puck line, if not win the game. Columbus has won outright or kept the score within one goal in 12 of their last 14 matchups versus the Wild. Our record for Best Bets on underdogs last season was a resounding 32-14 which included five wins due to the Blue Jackets. If we place our bank total of $19 on the Blue Jackets to cover, our new total will be $34.83 heading into Friday.
