Welcome to the 2023-2024 NHL season everyone, we finally made it! As someone that works in the world of the NHL it may seem silly to miss a sport that ends just before the 4th of July but I miss hockey when its not around and more importantly I miss the money that follows! This will be my 4th NHL season writing betting content and over that time I have never had a season in the red or a win percentage under 58% and that's over nearly 1,000 picks at this point! Something to remember though as the season is a long grind is to not get too low or too high, disciplined betting is important in life but even more so in the NHL as you'll be able to wager on hockey from now until June. Enough of the PSA though and let's get into what you came here for and that's to wager on some hockey! Tonight with a slate of just 3 games there were limited options but I love a game total and a Money Line for tonight so let's get those locked in! 

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**all bets are one unit unless specifically mentioned.

NHL Best Bets for October 10

Nashville Predators at Tampa Bay Lightning

Leading into this NHL season much has changed for these two teams that have been competitors over the past handful of seasons. Things are a bit different now though as the Lightning have lost most of their supporting players from those Stanley Cup runs and the Predators appear to be in full rebuild mode after an offseason of shipping out talent. The Lightning will also be without the services of Andrei Vasilevskiy who had back surgery and will be out till about Thanksgiving. This makes the game side to pick nearly wide open but on the game total I see a play that I like and its the under of 6.5 goals. This is because regardless of the Lightning goalie situation Juuse Saros is starting for Nashville and he has been the anchor of this team coming off a season with a 33 win season to go with his 2.69 GAA and .919 SV%. This leads of course into the model which will be getting some tweaks as new data comes in but it has a projected goal total of just 5.6 goals tonight given that the Predators were the 5th lowest scoring team in the NHL last year and did nothing to improve and between these two teams it gives a 70.3% outcome rate of the under 6.5 goals for tonight. Pretty hefty edge looking at the numbers so let's ride on that at least until we have real data to stand on for this new season!

Pick: Predators & Lightning Game Total Under 6.5 Goals (-115 on BetMGM)

 

Seattle Kraken at Vegas Golden Knights

I don't like to be a party pooper but apparently that's what I am going to be tonight as the Golden Knights party it up for the defense of their Stanley Cup tonight in front of the home crowd. Don't get me wrong I can't wait to see Vegas raise that banner, its a special moment for the young franchise and the city but with all of the attention on that I think they may forget there's a hockey game to be played against a hungry rag tag group of players in the Kraken. The Kraken were one of the most exciting stories from last season and they did nothing to get any worse over the offseason. This is one of the deepest teams in lines 1 through 4 and while they don't have the super star player their 3rd and 4th lines are so much better than your favorite team's depth. That should help them play a consistent game all season and especially tonight as they watch their expansion team rival show of the Cup one last time. The model projects the Kraken to win this game 48.7% of the time tonight and DraftKings has them slated based on the odds at just 41.3% which gives good value on Seattle to win as underdogs tonight. It's night one so let's take a swing, why not Seattle on the Money Line tonight! 

Pick: Seattle Kraken Money Line (+145 on Bet365)