Posted at 8:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

Nashville +105 over Pittsburgh

2:00 PM ET. OT inclued. The wrong side is favored here. Pittsburgh’s start looks good on paper, but it’s built on smoke and mirrors. The Penguins are being priced as if they’re a top-five team in the East again, yet a deeper look shows a club riding percentages rather than process.

The narrative has been heart-warming: a “resurgent” core of Crosby, Malkin, and Karlsson defying age and dragging the Pens back into relevance. It plays well on highlight reels, but it’s masking serious flaws. This group still ranks among the five oldest rosters in the NHL, and almost every key piece is north of 30. When you rely on veterans to carry 22-minute nights, it looks fine in November but time will catch up.

Under the hood, the story changes. Pittsburgh’s 35.9% power-play efficiency is unsustainable. I’s the kind of number that always comes crashing down. Their team shooting percentage (13%) and save percentage (.909) both sit near the top of the league, yet they rank outside the top 20 in offensive-zone share and scoring-chance share. That’s the definition of misleading performance. In other words, they’ve been outplayed more often than their record suggests, but the puck has bounced their way. That’s not dominance. that’s variance.

Meanwhile, Nashville’s metrics tell a very different story. The Predators have quietly been one of the most territorially dominant teams in hockey. They rank second in the entire NHL in offensive-zone possession time, controlling pace, dictating matchups, and grinding opponents down shift after shift. Nashville plays with structure, depth, and pace and they’re generating far more sustained pressure than their reputation or market price implies. This is a team that can wear you out. They roll four lines, win faceoffs, and own the puck. They don’t rely on a hot power play or an aging core to survive. Every night, Nashville forces teams to defend for long stretches, and that formula travels, especially against a club like Pittsburgh that spends too much time chasing the puck in its own zone.

Oddsmakers are clinging to the Penguins’ name and early-season record, but the metrics scream regression. Pittsburgh has been winning games they have no business winning, and the line here reflects nostalgia, not reality. Nashville, on the other hand, is being undervalued because they aren’t flashy, just fundamentally sound and analytically strong. Pittsburgh’s headline numbers are fooling the market. Nashville is the better five-on-five team, the more balanced roster, and the club controlling the puck more than almost anyone in the league. The Predators don’t need luck to win,  the Penguins do.

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