Today's Free Picks for
Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.
Colorado -1½ +108 over Nashville
8:00 PM EST. This one is about a goal gap you can drive a truck through. Colorado (6-4-1) has scored 47 goals in 11 games — 4.27 a night — behind Nathan MacKinnon (seven goals, 13 assists, 20 points, and a team-high 48 shots), Artturi Lehkonen (nine goals, tied for third in the league) and Martin Necas (14 points). Nashville (3-3-4) is scoring 2.5 a game, got shut out 6-0 by Boston on Thursday, and has lost five of its last six. When one team scores nearly twice as often as the other, laying a goal and a half at plus money is not a leap — it's arithmetic. The Avs just hung six on Tampa Bay on Friday night, and they're walking into Bridgestone Arena tonight against a team that can't buy a goal.
The schedule tilts it further. Nashville played in Pittsburgh last night, so tonight is the second half of a back-to-back with travel, on legs that already absorbed a 6-0 beating on Thursday. Colorado, meanwhile, has been home since Friday, rested, and its recent road losses were one-goal games — 3-2 at Philadelphia, 4-3 at New Jersey — not the kind of collapses that suggest a team in trouble away from home. A rested top-five offense against a tired team that just lost two in three days is the exact profile for a 4-2, 5-3 type of night, and that's all the puck line asks for.
The price is on your side. But here's the sober counterweight the market is whispering — numberFire gives Colorado only a 58.2% chance to win outright, well below what a -230 moneyline implies. That's because Colorado's own goaltending is the weak link: Mackenzie Blackwood is at .893, Scott Wedgewood at .912, and the Avs give up 3.0 a game themselves. Nashville is also relatively healthy, and Juuse Saros is the kind of goalie who can steal a game on his own — plus the Predators kill penalties at 83.9% and convert 27.6% of their power plays, so Colorado can't spend the night in the box and expect to cover.
All of that is real, and none of it changes the central fact: Nashville has to score to cover, and Nashville isn't scoring — 2.5 a game, blanked on Thursday, five losses in six, on a back-to-back. Colorado's offense doesn't need its goalie to be great; it needs him to be adequate, and two extra goals of cushion usually is.
Our Pick
Colorado -1½ +108 (Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.16)