Colorado has been playing exceptionally erratically lately.
Connor McDavid’s early season has been a big disappointment. AOP / USA TODAY Sports
The most interesting game of the day
Both NHL games next night are very interesting in their own way.
Edmonton’s new head coach will get his baptism of fire in the Edmonton-NY Islanders match Chris Knoblauch. Knoblauch moves to Edmonton from the NY Rangers farm team from Hartford. However, the connection to the team can be found through the fact that Knoblauch has once coached Edmonton’s mega star Connor McDavid in crazy times.
The main reason for Edmonton’s early season dive (second to last in the Western Conference) can be seen in McDavid’s drastic underperformance. McDavid has scored only 2 goals in his first 11 games this season. Of course, there are many more factors behind the losses than McDavid’s lack of energy for some reason.
In the short term, Knoblauch’s arrival at Edmonton’s helm will very likely free up and improve the team’s play, but the effects of a longer period of time are impossible to estimate.
Another team, Colorado, which was one of the favorites for the Stanley Cup before the season, is also in at least some kind of confusion, because the team’s game performances and results fluctuate a lot at the moment.
There are now two worrying collapses in the previous four matches. The 0-7 loss to Vegas on the road is still somehow understandable, but the 2-8 home loss to the weak St. Louis Blues already goes beyond logical explanation to some extent.
When you add to this the last week’s 0-0 defeats (0–4 and 0–4) against Buffalo and Pittsburgh, the Colorado coach’s by Jared Bednar position should soon be questioned. Colorado has lost five of their last seven games.
In the same way, when in Edmonton the main culprit for the bad mood is the team’s star player, eyes are also on the team’s super player in Colorado to Nathan MacKinnon. In terms of points, MacKinnon is not in as steep a slump as McDavid (6+9=15 in 13 matches), but the attacker’s grips have often been full of violence.
About the Finns of Colorado Mikko Rantanen is currently the most effective player in his team with a balance of 9+10. Injured in Friday’s Seattle game Artturi Lehkonen (3+5) will not be fit for several weeks. The newest Finnish newcomer in Colorado has received a contract from the farm side Joel Kiviranta.
Next night, Colorado will face Seattle again, this time away. Friday’s match ended with Seattle’s 4–3 away win by Oliver Björkstrand with the winning goal in the last minute. The shots in the match went to Colorado 26–22, and the goal score was 2.5–2 to Seattle.
Based on these starting points, Colorado’s favorite position could now be questioned in principle, but I personally don’t take that much of a stance on this game.
Edmonton-NY Islanders starts at 3:38 and Seattle-Colorado at 5:08
The best betting tip of the day
In terms of betting, in the Edmonton–NY Islanders match, you can instead take a cautious position in favor of the home team.
The new coach Knoblauch has hardly yet had time to bring anything new and revolutionary to the team’s play, but Edmonton’s possible improvement in the game can be mainly due to getting rid of the old coach.
If, for example, McDavid does not have any physical disability, the effect can be surprisingly large. The 1.90 offered for Edmonton’s regular time win is an experiment worth considering for this particular place.
Games of the day: Edmonton–NY Islanders 1 (odds 1.90)
The total balance of the day’s games for the year: 120/214/98%
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.