Top NHL Betting Picks of the Week – January 15th, 2024

The head coaches for this season’s All-Star Game, which is Feb. 3 in Toronto, were named over the weekend: Peter Laviolette of the New York Rangers, Jim Montgomery of the Boston Bruins, Rick Bowness of the Winnipeg Jets and Rick Tocchet of the Vancouver Canucks. The coaches will be assigned to one team each when the player and celebrity captains are named for the new 3-on-3 format. Bowness is the lone one of the four to never coach in the ASG previously. Here’s a look at two intriguing matchups early this week.

Top NHL Betting Picks of the Week (January 15th, 2024)

Two of the four division leaders are major surprises and we have a wide-open MVP race at the halfway point of the NHL season. Here are this week's power rankings. (@Dixononsports) https://t.co/6bRm9QFXHA

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 11, 2024

Los Angeles Kings vs. Carolina Hurricanes

• When: Monday, January 15th, 2024, 3:00 PM ET
• Where: PNC Arena, Raleigh, NC
• TV: NHLPP, ESPN+
• Radio: KWKW 1330 AM (Kings) // 99.9 The Fan FM (Hurricanes)
• Live Stream: ESPN+
• NHL Betting Odds: Kings (+1.5) // Hurricanes (-1.5)

Earlier this season, the Los Angeles Kings set the NHL record for most road wins to open a season with 11 straight. Since doing that the night of Dec. 7 in Montreal, the team has fallen off a cliff both home and away and enters Monday on a shocking eight-game losing streak after losing 5-3 in Detroit on Sunday.

It was tied 1-1 after one but the second period was all Red Wings as they outscored the Kings 4-0 and outshot them 19-10. The four-goal period also resulted in the end of LA goaltender Cam Talbot’s night. Talbot was pulled after two period, stopping 22 of 27 shots. David Rittich took the net for the Kings in relief, making his fourth appearance of the season. Talbot has gone 0-4-3 during the Kings’ eight-game winless slump and has allowed 15 goals in his last four games so it may well be Rittich starting Monday.

Quinton Byfield, just 21, had two goals in the loss, both on the power play, to snap his eight-game goalless drought. He has 12 goals on the season and leads the club with four multi-goal games. It was his fifth career multi-goal game, tying Alex Frolov, Doug Smith and Larry Murphy for the seventh most by a Kings player before age 22.

Byfield also has recorded his first career 30-point season (12-18=30) in his 39th game of the campaign to become the 13th different Kings skater 21 years of age or younger to tally 30 points within the teams’ first 39 games to start a season, and the first to do so since Anze Kopitar (10-20=30) in 2008-09.

The eight-game freefall represents the Kings’ longest skid since a 10-game stinkfest in February of 2019. Of the seven forwards who have skated regularly on the Kings’ third and fourth lines, none have scored a goal at even strength or shorthanded, and four of the seven players don’t even have a point during the funk.

“We can’t make crap up, we’ve got to tell them where we are, and we have to be honest with them,” said Coach Todd McLellan in dealing with the slide. “We’ve tried to accentuate a lot of the positives, because there are a fair number in the game, but, when it’s all said and done, I think that each individual has to do some inventory-checking, making sure they’re bringing what they can.”

Carolina has earned points in every game during the calendar year, going 4-0-1 in 2024 after closing 2023 on a three-game high note. The Canes scored five or more goals in five of those seven victories. The team is off a 3-2 OT win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. Brett Pesce scored his third career overtime goal and tied Jaccob Slavin, Dougie Hamilton and Anton Babchuk for the most by a defenseman in Hurricanes/Whalers history. Pesce also had his second career multi-goal outing (also Jan. 12, 2023) after entering Saturday with just one goal through 33 games so far this season.

Center Martin Necas was out for a fourth straight game Saturday with an upper-body injury and is iffy Monday. Before getting hurt, he had recorded nine goals, 26 points, 31 hits and 16 blocks in 38 outings.

Carolina tries for the season sweep as it won 6-5 in a shootout at the Kings on Oct. 14. Jordan Martinook scored in the ninth round of the shootout after Carolina had blown a three-goal lead in regulation.

NHL Betting Pick: Hurricanes

Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Edmonton Oilers

• When: Tuesday, January 16th, 2024, 9:00 PM ET
• Where: Rogers Place, Edmonton, Canada
• TV: NHLPP, ESPN+
• Radio: TSN 1050 (Maple Leafs) // 104.5 The Team ESPN (Oilers)
• Live Stream: ESPN+
• NHL Betting Odds: TBA

Could be a Stanley Cup Finals preview and features perhaps the best individual offensive matchup in the NHL in Toronto’s Auston Matthews and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, both former No. 1 overall picks, both former Hart Trophy winners and two of the league’s biggest stars. Matthews (175) has the fifth-most multi-point games among active U.S.-born players, trailing Patrick Kane (332), Joe Pavelski (240), Blake Wheeler (225) and Johnny Gaudreau (182).

Edmonton is the hottest team in the NHL as it enters on a 10-game winning streak. McDavid has five goals and 16 assists and has scored at least one point in each game of the winning streak. It’s his 14th career point streak of double-digit length. He is one of four players in NHL history with at least 14 such streaks in their career joining Wayne Gretzky (31), Guy LaFleur (15) and Mario Lemieux (14).

He is the 19th player in NHL history, and sixth active skater, to collect a point in every contest of a win streak of 10 or more games. The other active players: Elias Lindholm (10 GP in 2021-22 w/ CGY), Brayden Point (11 GP in 2019-20 w/ TBL), Vladimir Tarasenko (10 GP in 2018-19 w/ STL), Jordan Staal (10 GP in 2011-12 w/ PIT) and Sidney Crosby (12 GP in 2010-11 w/ PIT).

Edmonton has posted six comeback wins, including four third-period comeback wins during its franchise-record stretch – a streak that also witnessed the club tie a franchise mark for consecutive road victories with eight. The Oilers are the third team in as many years with at least six comeback victories in a double-digit win streak and seventh in NHL history with at least four third-period comeback victories in that scenario.

The Oilers are the 26th different NHL franchise to post a win streak of at least 10 games. The Coyotes/Jets, Stars/North Stars, Red Wings, Kings, Kraken (active nine-game streak) and Jets/Thrashers are the only franchises to have not achieved the feat.

“It’s a great little streak we’ve got going,” said All-Star Leon Draisaitl. “There was a lot of wins in this organization for a long time, so it’s kind of hard to believe that they never won 10 games in a row back then with the teams they had. But we’ll obviously take it and it’s something that no one can take from us from now on and we’re just looking to continue that.”

The NHL has scrapped the divisional format for All-Star weekend and will instead have captains draft their own teams for the 3-on-3 tournament. Matthews and McDavid have agreed to lead two of the teams.

Tuesday is the first of two meetings between the teams. They split last year, each winning at home. We think that continues.

NHL Betting Pick: Oilers

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