NHL Best Bets: Back the Jets to take control of series against Avalanche in Game 3

The 2023-24 Stanley Cup Playoffs continue on Friday night with a four-game slate that begins at 7 p.m. ET and carries on deep into the night with a pair of late puck drops out West.

Let’s get into our favorite bets for what should be an exciting night of hockey:

The Vancouver Canucks were dealt a big blow after Game 1 when it was announced that star goaltender Thatcher Demko would miss time with an injury. Losing Demko is nothing new to the Canucks, he missed large chunks of time the past two seasons, but he is a Vezina-caliber netminder and the dropoff between him and Casey DeSmith is significant.

And while DeSmith is a decent deputy and he’s had strong moments this season, this matchup is pretty tough. The Predators may not be known as an offensive powerhouse, but they certainly trended that way for the second half of this season. Only a few teams (Colorado, Edmonton and Carolina) did a better job at creating quality scoring chances than Nashville over the last 25 games of the campaign.

Vancouver has played a strong game at 5-on-5 so far in this series, but the margin for error is now much thinner with Demko on the shelf. I like the Preds to -120 at home on Friday night.

» READ MORE: Stanley Cup Playoffs predictions: Best bets for each conference, finals winner

One thing you’ll notice about betting on the Stanley Cup Playoffs is that the market will often overreact to specific results. After Game 1, the narrative in this series was that the Avalanche were in trouble because of some inconsistent goaltending and questions about their depth.

One win later and the market is back in on Colorado in a big way.

And while the Avs certainly have a significant home-ice advantage in the altitude at Ball Arena, that will be nothing new to the Winnipeg Jets, who are in the same division as the Avalanche and had plenty of success against Colorado in the regular season.

More notable, however, is the fact that one win over the Jets in Game 2 doesn’t mean that the Avs have solved their issues. Nobody can be certain that Alexandar Georgiev has found his form in goal and will carry his momentum into Game 3, which is a big deal considering he’s going up against the best goaltender in the NHL this season.

The Avs deserve to be the favorite in this contest, but this looks like an over-adjustment to one win.

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