Forget Myers & Briggs. The act of betting can be a window into a person’s personality. How much risk is tolerable? Are you driven by the pleasure of many goals being scored, or are you willing to suffer for 60 minutes rooting against various individuals scoring? Are you captive to recent developments or do you take the long view? 

This Saturday’s slate is peculiar, with fewer games than on Friday and several contests featuring teams in the second contest of a back-to-back. Nevertheless, our quest for the right balance between throwing shade on players’ scoring prospects and picking the right moneyline games remains unwavering. 

Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning
Saturday, December 10 – 4:30 PM ET
The Lightning-Panthers rivalry is boisterous television. And now that Matthew Tkachuk has been added to the mix, this matchup is even juicier. There is palpable bad blood between these two teams, and with the Eastern Conference highly competitive, this emerges as a very important game between a Tampa Bay team looking to vacuum up as many wins as possible on a home swing and a Florida squad that has lost more games than they have won. Bragging rights and playoff positioning are at stake. 

Let’s start with the glass half-full. Like the Lightning, the Panthers have tremendous advanced stats this season. Newcomer Tkachuk has flourished in his new home, and Carter Verhaeghe has built on the career bests he posted last season. Aleksander Barkov is back. 

Still, this season has been a struggle. In addition to suspect goaltending, the Panthers lack the sizzle they had under coaches Joel Quenneville and Andrew Brunette. Against Detroit on Thursday night, the Panthers demonstrated their capability to strike off the rush when an opponent cedes the puck in the neutral zone or forgets to cover the trailing defenceman. But their vulnerable defensive group and top-heavy forwards present problems for the Panthers against deeper opponents.  

Yes, it was the Panthers’ last game of a long road trip, but the Winnipeg Jets’ victory over them on Tuesday offers the Lightning a blueprint for winning on Saturday. Winnipeg’s forecheckers forced turnovers and chaos on the Panthers’ breakout, exposing the ineptitude and lack of mobility of some of Florida’s defensive group. The Lightning love to use the walls to wrap the puck around and force turnovers against their adversaries, so the Panthers’ blueline will have a formidable task trying to exit the zone against them.

Furthermore, The Jets had success when they forced the Panthers to make quick reads, especially in transition. Even in their 5-1 trouncing of the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday, Verhaeghe zoned out when the score was 0-0, failing to pick up his man and allowing Lucas Raymond to waltz into the slot for a golden scoring chance. This is highly concerning because Tampa Bay loves to use give-and-go’s, delayed entries, and hook-and-ladder plays in the neutral zone and on entries to try to gin up misdirection and open up skating lanes. Tampa Bay excels at sowing confusion and exploiting it.

Of course, the Panthers also have a blueprint to work off when scheming for the Lightning. In the Lightning’s loss to Detroit on Tuesday, the Red Wings shrewdly attacked through the middle of the ice, exposing the Lightning forwards who were a step slow to back-check when their defencemen were too far split apart or when they chased to the outside. Also, the Red Wings used the neutral zone forecheck as a springboard for counterattack chances against a Lightning breakout that looked to stretch the zone. 

Saturday’s matchup may very well be decided by goaltending. One could make the argument that the Lightning’s biggest shortcoming this season has been underwhelming play from the usually dazzling Andrei Vasilevskiy. Still, Vasilevskiy is a vastly superior option to the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky, who may get the nod due to Spencer Knight’s recent illness. Bobrovsky’s Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) this season is -5.89, which is atrocious. If he starts, he has the potential to singlehandedly sink this game for Florida.

At home, the Lightning have been stellar, while Florida has been well under .500 on the road. Tampa Bay is deeper and seems focused of late. I like the Lightning on the moneyline.

Pick: Tampa Bay Lightning -130

Calgary Flames at Toronto Maple Leafs
Saturday, December 10 – 7:00 PM ET
There was chatter entering the season that the Calgary Flames somehow escaped a potentially disastrous offseason which saw their two best forwards leaving by recalibrating on the fly and getting better and deeper. If you listened closely, there were murmurs that they were a dark horse to win the West. But although they have won six of their last ten games, the Flames have been mostly disappointing through 26 games. 

The Flames have struggled to score and their putative starting goaltender (Jacob Markstrom) has been a disaster. The best thing they have going for them is how turbulent the playoff picture for the rest of the West looks.

The Maple Leafs look like a bad matchup for Calgary. The Leafs yearn to drive the puck north, and their speed is relentless when powering the puck into the offensive zone and then wearing their opponent out through motion, rotations, and puck retrievals. Even if the Flames try to stand the Leafs up at the blue line, Calgary’s defencemen get jumpy when they feel pressure below the hash marks, so Toronto should be able to force turnovers with frequency on the forecheck. 

It’s not going out on a limb to posit this could be a low-scoring affair. The Leafs have allowed zero goals in their last two outings, and their goaltending has been excellent. The Flames are one of the NHL’s best in denying high-danger chances. With a realistic dearth of 5-on-5 goals, Mikael Backlund, Andrew Mangiapane, and Noah Hanifin failing to register a point are tantalizing options. None of the three are on the first unit of the power play, and when they do see time on the second unit, they’ll be facing a Maple Leafs penalty kill group that ranks in the top ten.

The player I’m most worried about getting burned by is Mangiapane. Against the Wild on Wednesday night, Calgary ran some nice set plays for Mangiapane off offensive zone faceoffs, allowing him to roll to the net for a tip or dive behind the net and set up as a playmaker along the goal line. He also plays with Nazem Kadri, who is awesome. 

Backlund is a really strong No. 3 center, but he is saddled with depth players at 5-on-5, and while Hanifin plays a lot of minutes, he is always looking to pass to a defensive partner with the harder shot or shoot into a tip. Cale Makar he is not. If a point comes from either of these two, I see it being off a Backlund tip or a secondary assist from Hanifin.

Overall, I think offence is a real struggle for the Flames. They will be playing the second game of a back-to-back and are 0-2 in the second of consecutive games so far this season. I’ll take the really good home team against the really bad road team any day. And I will gleefully capitalize on the Flames’ scoring troubles by fading their players outside the first power-play unit.

Picks: Toronto Maple Leafs -165, Andrew Mangiapane U 0.5 points -105, Noah Hanifin U 0.5 points -120, Mikael Backlund U 0.5 points -125, 

Los Angeles Kings at Montreal Canadiens
Saturday, December 10 – 7:00 PM ET
When I think of the happiest times in my life so far – like getting married or witnessing the birth of my child – they marked a moment of joy that created a lightness in my head. A wave of emotion clenched in my throat, and I no longer felt steady on my feet. It’s not quite the same degree of happiness, but somewhere in the ballpark is the opportunity to fade Montreal’s Christian Dvorak when he is riding a two-game point streak.

Dvorak has registered points in eight of 26 games this season. He plays on one of the worst advanced stats team in the NHL at 5-on-5. He isn’t on the first power-play unit, which is relieving because we don’t want him anywhere near Nick Suzuki or Cole Caufield, who are dynamos. He plays on the same line as Joel Armia, who has zero goals and two assists through 15 games. 

Always seeming to move at half-speed, Dvorak has tallied a measly 35 shots on the season. Against the Canucks, he shoveled in a rebound after Vancouver lost a faceoff draw and gave up. Against the Seattle Kraken, he slipped a nice pass to Josh Anderson after the Kraken defender pinched without support underneath. With two massive defensive breakdowns occurring in back-to-back games to fuel his offensive contribution, I am dubious it happens a third time.

The Los Angeles Kings aren’t necessarily an ideal opponent in terms of backing their defensive prowess. Their goaltending woes are legendary, once rostering Cal Petersen, who helped author the notorious 9-8 Seattle Kraken debacle. But the Kings should also be a tough foe for the Canadiens. The Kings cycle and counterattack well. They protect the slot. And after they unraveled against the Maple Leafs due to their off-kilter and sloppy neutral zone play, one would imagine they will be especially detailed in that facet on Saturday night.

The argument for Dvorak is concise: Mediocre player on below average team doesn’t find his way on the scoresheet a third straight game.
Pick: Christian Dvorak U 0.5 points -170