Top NHL Betting Picks of the Week – January 16th, 2023

The NHL All-Star Game is Saturday, Feb. 4 from Sunrise, Fla., as the Panthers will be the host team. The coaches for the four divisions have been finalized: Boston’s Jim Montgomery will coach the Atlantic Division, Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour the Metropolitan, Dallas’ Peter DeBoer the Central and Vegas’ Bruce Cassidy the Pacific. They were chosen because each of their teams is atop the division at the midway point of the season. Here’s a look at two intriguing early-week matchups around the league. Check back for NHL odds.

Top NHL Betting Picks of the Week (January 16th, 2023)

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Dallas Stars vs. Vegas Golden Knights

• When: Monday, January 16, 2023, 6:00 PM ET
• Where: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, NV
• TV: ATTSN-RM, BSSW
• Radio: 1310 The Ticket (Stars) // FOX Sports 98.9 FM (Knights)
• Live Stream: NHL Live
• NHL Betting Odds: Stars (+1.5) // Golden Knights (-1.5)

This could be a Western Conference playoff preview but the Knights will be missing one of their key players for a while in forward and captain Mark Stone with an upper-body injury. Stone, being called week-to-week, is second on the Golden Knights with 38 points (17 goals, 21 assists) in 43 games. Before getting hurt last Thursday, Stone hadn’t missed a game this season after being limited to 37 games last season because of injuries. Stone had back surgery May 19, but Coach Bruce Cassidy would not say if the injury was to his back.

“It’s his upper body,” he said. “They’re still going through some different things with it.”

A lengthy absence will be a huge blow to the Golden Knights, especially given how close the standings are in the Pacific Division. Vegas led the division around this point last year too, only to fall out of the race and miss the playoffs completely by the end of the season in large part because of all those games Stone missed.

Dallas could be without one of its key players as well as Roope Hintz missed a third straight game Saturday with an upper-body injury. Hintz has 19 goals and 33 points in 40 games this season as he has been part of one of the best top lines in the NHL, along with Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelski.

With Hintz out, Tyler Seguin has moved up to the top line and found a little more of his skill again. Seguin said he’s just trying to help the team win and is taking what the game gives him. He’s averaging 16:37 in time on ice per game, down a minute from last season, but his scoring is up slightly, and his plus-minus is much better.

“He’s done a good job. He has worked hard,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “Those are big shoes to fill with Roope out, but that was a big goal for us, and he did a good job.”

This is the first meeting of the season between the teams. The lone matchup in Las Vegas between them last season was a 5-4 Vegas win. Stone had two goals and Max Pacioretty scored the winner. Pacioretty is no longer with Vegas. Pavelski scored twice, and Robertson and Seguin had goals for the Stars.

NHL Betting Pick: Vegas Golden Knights

Seattle Kraken vs. Edmonton Oilers

• When: Tuesday, January 10, 2023, 9:00 PM ET
• Where: Rogers Place Edmonton, AB
• TV: SNW, ROOT-NW
• Radio: 93.3 KJR FM (Kraken) // 630 CHED (Oilers)
• Live Stream: NHL Live
• NHL Betting Odds: TBA

Seattle is red hot entering the week on an eight-game winning streak, with the final seven on the road. It marked the first time any NHL team has won every game on a road trip of seven games or more. Seattle still remains the only undefeated NHL team in 2023.

On Saturday in Chicago, the Kraken scored eight goals. It was the fourth time this season the Kraken have scored at least eight goals and the third time they have done it on the road. It was also the 20th time in 23 road games that Seattle has scored at least three times.

The defense has been miles better than last year’s expansion team led by the Adam Larsson-Vince Dunn top pairing. The two paired most of last year’s second half of the season, getting to know each other’s tendencies. They face the best lines from every opponent and have flourished as offensive contributors. Larsson has a goal and seven assists in the last 12 games, including a seven-game point streak. Dunn has two goals and 11 assists in those same dozen games.

Larsson, the team’s expansion pick from Edmonton via signing him during a Kraken-exclusive free-agency period, teams up with defenseman Jamie Oleksiak (Seattle’s expansion pick from Dallas during the same free-agency period) as the first-out penalty killers on defense.

Winger Eeli Tolvanen, a promising former first-rounder who had become a spare part in Nashville, fell to Seattle after going on waivers. Even though they already carried too many game-time options at forward, the Kraken went for it. After another 2 1/2 weeks of healthy scratches with Seattle, Tolvanen has four goals in eight games, all Seattle wins. On the Kraken, only Matty Beniers has scored more during that span. Tolvanen fit in well on the third line and scored in his Seattle debut, then every second game since. Beniers, the leading scorer among NHL rookies (34 points; 16 goals, 18 assists) has four goals in his past six games.

Edmonton enters on a three-game winning streak following a 4-3 win in Las Vegas on Saturday. Leon Draisaitl scored two goals and has four total in the three-game winning streak. The Oilers are finally beginning to resemble the team that advanced to the Western Conference final last season. They play four of their next five at home, but the Oilers are 10-11-2 at Rogers Place this season.

These teams have split two meetings thus far. They last played Jan. 3 in Edmonton and the Kraken won 5-2 in an upset. Jaden Schwartz had a goal and two assists as the Seattle Kraken exploded for four consecutive goals in the second period. Matty Beniers, Yanni Gourde, Jared McCann and Alex Wennberg also scored for Seattle and Martin Jones made 30 saves. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid had the Oilers goals.

NHL Betting Pick: Edmonton Oilers

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READ MORE: Top NHL Betting Picks of the Week – January 23rd, 2023