Will the hot Florida be able to inflict the first away loss of the spring on Toronto?
Auston Matthews’ Toronto Maple Leafs have played strong away from home, but the home games have been difficult. AOP / USA TODAY SPORTS
The most interesting game of the day
The NHL quarter-final series between Toronto and Florida continues on the night between Sunday and Monday with real surprise numbers, as Florida leads the series after two away games, cleanly 2-0.
Toronto’s playoff spring has gotten off to a rather unusual start in terms of home and away balances. At home, Toronto has won only one of its five games against Tampa and Florida. The balance is made even more strange by the fact that, at the same time, it has won the expected goals of its home games by a total of 21.6–14.6 (against Florida 9.9–5.7).
The historical ballast brought by weak playoff years is still quite visible in Toronto’s home games. The team’s players simply don’t know how to be in the goal posts yet/at the moment relaxed enough to think about success. The team’s offensive play has, for example, been at the level required to win in both Florida matches, with the exception of scoring.
On the other hand, there are still too many mistakes in Toronto’s defensive play to make it easy to win without effective finishing. Also, goalkeeper Ilja Samsonov (89.47% playoff save percentage) is not currently playing at any championship level.
On the flip side of Toronto’s weak balance of home matches, there is a perfect away balance for now; the team won all of its away games against Tampa – even in overtime. My own interpretation is that in the away bowl, the team is able to be less pressured and get more out of their potential.
Floria played quite decently in both games of Toronto’s head, but if Toronto plays its best possible game and also succeeds in scoring, the balance of power between the teams should still be quite clearly in Toronto’s direction.
In the triple match played in Florida, it will be interesting to see if Toronto will continue its strong away game familiar from the Tampa series. I believe in this quite strongly.
Florida–Toronto starts at 1:30.
The best betting tip of the day
When it comes to betting, Veikkaus is really sharp about the third match of the Toronto–Florida series. The company knows how to price the away team Toronto the lowest odds on the market for both the actual game time win (2.18) and the final win (1.73). Of these, the final win would be more interesting from a sporting point of view, but at least until the tag, you can’t really choose the lowest coefficient on the market.
An alternative bet in favor of Toronto is also -1.5 handicap Toronto with odds of 2.68. The best bet for the New Jersey–Carolina match earlier in the evening – and an overmultiplier one at that – is 1.83 offered for under 5.5 goals. It’s valid until the receipt. New Jersey–Carolina starts at 22:40.
The best case in football games is the 1.87 odds offered for the Newcastle-Arsenal match under 2.75 goals. The game starts at 18:30.
Today’s games: New Jersey–Carolina, under 5.5 goals (odds 1.83).
Total balance of the day’s games for the year: 49/89/93%
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.