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NHL Playoffs Best Bets, Picks & Predictions: Monday (Hurricanes vs. Panthers)

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What an exciting time for sports fans in  Miami. The Panthers continue to find ways to win dramatically as, once again, Matthew Tkachuk is the hero who had the game-winning overtime goal. Tonight is an important game because the Panthers could make it nearly impossible for the Hurricanes to come back from a 3-0, but Carolina could bring some life back into the series with a road win.

Monday's Best NHL Bets

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook

Carolina Hurricanes (-104) at Florida Panthers (-115) | O/U 5.5 (-114/-106)

Although the Florida offense has taken a back seat in this series. They have not been better as a unit than Carolina, with just a 38.69 expected goal percentage and a 45.01 Corsi percentage.

Sergei Bobrovsky is having a Conn Smythe-like performance in the playoffs and had another stellar start by saving 37-of-38. He's taken down some of the best offenses in the league during this run and now has 17.3 goals saved above expected and 2.89 wins above replacement.

As mentioned, when you look at the underlining metrics, Carolina's offense has had better opportunities to score, but they haven't figured out how to get through Borbrosky. They have a deep level of talented forwards like Sebastian Aho, Jesper Fast, and Martin Necas, who have been their prominent goal scorers throughout the season but haven't lit the lamp in the series.

There isn't much more they can do besides continue to be aggressive in the offensive zone, fight for rebounds in the crease, and hope they get favorable bounces.

This means the goaltending will have to be near perfect. With Frederik Andersen between the pipes for the entire Game 1, they went with the fresh legs of  Antti Raanta.  Raanta did what he was asked to and kept the Canes in contention for this entire game, but one slip-up and they dropped they lost again.

The question of conditioning will be a significant factor for the rest of this series, as there have already been over 200 minutes of game time in this series. This time, they do not benefit from an extra rest day, so it's a 48-hour turnaround until we get a winner.

We saw a large dip in shots taken, and ultimately the final score went under. That will continue throughout this series.

Pick: Under 5.5 (-106)

Check out our other best bets for Monday:


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