Powered by:
Morning Coffee: Maple Leafs odds to advance shift significantly at FanDuel
Published
It starts with one.
Facing elimination down 3-1 in the series, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins 2-1 in overtime at TD Garden to force a Game 6 in Toronto on Thursday night.
With the win, Leafs Nation pressed the pause button on all the discussions about next season to focus on the positive takeaways their team can carry over after their most impressive showing of the playoffs so far.
The Matthew Knies game.
With Auston Matthews sidelined, William Nylander working his way back into form, and Mitch Marner dealing with the brunt of the criticism following a brutal start to the series, Toronto needed every single player available to step to stay alive.
That’s exactly what happened last night in Boston.
Knies, who appeared to challenge David Pastrnak to a fight earlier in the game, scored the overtime winner.
Only Nylander and Morgan Rielly finished with more shots on goal (5) than Knies (4).
Meanwhile, Joseph Woll turned aside 27 of the 28 shots he faced as the Maple Leafs held the Bruins to fewer than two goals for the first time in the series.
Considering Toronto has been held to two goals or fewer in all but one game in the series, every save was crucial.
As I predicted in Tuesday’s Morning Coffee, the series outlook suddenly looks very different heading into another elimination game on Thursday night.
Boston remains the favourite to win the series.
However, FanDuel’s odds that the Maple Leafs will advance look very different following last night’s win.
This is the Morning Coffee for Wednesday, May 1st, 2024.
Maple Leafs odds to advance shift significantly at FanDuel
On Tuesday morning, I wrote about looking forward to seeing how Toronto would respond facing elimination in Game 5 following its worst performance of the series.
Well, that was a pretty impressive effort.
With one of the league’s biggest superstars out of the lineup, the Maple Leafs rallied with their best performance of the playoffs to date.
The 21-year-old Knies became the sixth-youngest player in franchise history to score a playoff overtime goal.
The victory snapped Toronto’s four-game losing streak in playoff overtime games when facing elimination in a best-of-seven series.
The 25-year-old Woll earned his second-career win in a potential series-elimination game.
He made several key stops in the third period and in overtime to give the Maple Leafs a chance and prove that he was the team’s best option in net moving forward.
Meanwhile, the Bruins fell to 1-5 in their last six home playoff games.
Boston has now lost five straight potential series-clinching games.
That’s something that should weigh on the Bruins as the series shifts back to Toronto for Game 6.
We still don’t know the severity of the injury that kept Auston Matthews out of the lineup last night.
If Matthews returns, it could provide an additional spark for a club that suddenly has some momentum on its side.
As I highlighted in Tuesday’s article, Boston was a bigger favourite to advance up 3-1 on the Florida Panthers last season before eventually losing that series in seven games.
At the time, the Bruins were -3500 to win that series up 3-1.
Fast-forward to last night, Boston was -1250 to win the series at FanDuel.
The Bruins closed -184 on the moneyline for Game 5, meaning they were considered more likely to win last night’s game than either team was to win any other game in the series.
And they didn’t get it done.
With the upset win as a +142 underdog, Toronto’s odds to advance were cut from +740 to +290.
Boston’s odds to win the series went from -1250 to -375.
The Maple Leafs opened as a -118 favourite for Game 6.
12 hours later, Toronto is currently -115 at FanDuel.
For as bad as things looked for the Maple Leafs through four games, all it took was one win to shake things up.
The Bruins are still the favourite to win the series.
However, the odds are no longer stacked against Toronto the way they were 24 hours ago.
The stage is set for an epic Game 6 on Thursday night.
A FanDuel Best Bet For Wednesday Night
It seemed like we were on our way to another sweep with the FanDuel Best Bets in Morning Coffee until late last night.
Joel Dublanko to go first overall in the CFL Draft cashed when the Edmonton Elks made him the top pick.
Shortly before that, Tyler Bertuzzi quickly notched the two shots on goal we needed for our Same Game Parlay+.
Unfortunately, Artturi Lehkonen couldn’t bring us home as he finished with just one shot on goal in the late game when we needed two.
It was the first time in five games this postseason that Lehkonen failed to register at least three shots on goal.
Fortunately, we still ended the month of April on a 14-2 run with the FanDuel Best Bet recommendations.
Add in the plays I’ve given out on Yes Guy the radio show on TSN1050 Radio over the past two weeks and I’ve gone a combined 23-3 with all of the plays that I’ve given out over the past 13 days.
Hopefully, we can keep it going with another winner this morning.
For my FanDuel Best Bet, I’m locking in the exact Same Game Parlay+ that I started the playoffs with.
I’ll take Adrian Kempe 3+ shots on goal and parlay it with Leon Draisaitl 2+ shots on goal at -109 odds in tonight’s late game between the Edmonton Oilers and the Los Angeles Kings.
Kempe had averaged 4.0 shots on goal per game in each of the first three games of the series before finishing with two in a Game 4 loss.
With the Kings facing elimination, I think Kempe will bounce back with a much better effort in that department tonight.
Meanwhile, Draisaitl has registered at least two shots on goal in each of the first four games of the series.
After combining for 12 shots on goal in Games 2 and 3, Draisaitl was held to two shots on goal in Game 4.
I feel confident that’s the floor for what we should expect from him in Game 5 tonight.