Skippered by the Finnish star, Florida can no longer afford losses if the team wants to make the spring playoffs.
Aleksander Barkov is trying to tear Florida into the playoffs, but it’s difficult. AOP / USA TODAY Sports
The most interesting game of the day
At the beginning of March, Florida, which seemed to be on the rise for a while, has drifted into a losing streak again. After a 2-5 loss to Ottawa, the most important opponent for the playoffs of the Eastern Conference, the streak of zero points is four games long.
Florida, which is ninth in the Eastern Conference standings, has eight games left in the season and is currently three points behind Pittsburgh, which is above the playoff line.
In practice, the team should no longer lose a single regular season match, as the battle for the last playoff spots in the East includes, along with Pittsburgh and Florida, also the Islanders, Buffalo, Ottawa and even Washington, which is three points away from Florida.
Florida’s losing streak has again/still been characterized by laxity – both offensively and defensively. It is indicative of the team’s play that only Buffalo, Montreal and Columbus have scored more own goals in the East. The miraculous laxity that has continued throughout the season cannot be turned into anything else at this point.
Captain Alexander Barkov has tried his best to drag his team up. Before the Ottawa match, Barkov was on a wild scoring streak after scoring 4+12=16 in ten consecutive matches. Against Ottawa, the captain was already tired.
On Wednesday night, Florida’s opposition will at least not be lightened, because Toronto will be the guest. Regarding Toronto, it is worth noting that even though its playoff spot is already certain, the team is guaranteed to try to collect as many points as possible to avoid facing Boston, the future winner of the Eastern Conference, before the conference finals. Instead of third in the conference, Toronto has three points and a game less played than New Jersey.
Toronto’s and Florida’s fairly large home dependences on the NHL are also worth noting. Toronto’s home record 20-5-5-7, goals 132–94, is the second best in the Eastern Conference, and Florida’s away record 13-2-3-19, goals 118–142, is the fifth weakest in the conference. Toronto has won the previous two meetings of the season.
On behalf of the lineups, Toronto has to count down a little bit here by Ryan O’Reilly, Ilya Samsonov, by Erik Gustafsson, Nick Robertson, Victor Meten and By Jake Muzzini absences, while Florida’s only significant absentee is a forward Sam Bennett.
Despite this, I’m betting in favor of Toronto in the match and the 1.67 offered for its final victory is the best bet for the match.
Toronto-Florida starts at 2:38.
The best betting tip of the day
Wednesday is a relatively quiet draw day.
From the NHL, along with Toronto, the NY Islanders’ actual game time of 2.44 times against Washington becomes a borderline case.
So let’s pick the best bits from the weekend already under the Championship’s relegation bid.
At this point, I consider the following targets to be slightly over-odds: Hull-Rotherham, Rotherham +0.5 with a coefficient of 1.98, Norwich-Sheffield United, Sheffield United +0.25 with a coefficient of 1.72, WBA against Millwall at home with a coefficient of 1.98 and Wigan-QPR , QPR +0.25 at odds of 1.84.
Games of the day:
Norwich–SheffU +0.25 2 (odds 1.72)
WBA–Millwall 1 (odds 1.98)
Wigan–QPR +0.25 2 (odds 1.84)
The total balance of the day’s games for the year: 31/57/90%
Every day Iltalehti chooses the most interesting game of the day and the best game destination of the day. You can always find them in the Betting and Ravit section.