Ottawa Senators vs Los Angeles Kings Prediction: Best Bet for Thursday
Los Angeles is 0-3-0 at home and has the league's worst penalty kill at 63.6 percent, and Ottawa brings an 8-5-0 record into a building where the home team has not won all season. The Senators have a goaltending problem of their own, and Thursday is about which flaw shows up first.
The Matchup
Ottawa is 8-5-0 and the better team in this game by almost any measure that involves skaters. The Senators score 2.85 goals per game and allow 2.92, and Tim Stutzle does a little of everything with 16 points, a team-high 8 goals and 8 assists. Ottawa is 3-3-0 on the road, unspectacular and honest, and it walks into the one building where the home team has offered no resistance at all.
Los Angeles is 3-6-2 and 0-3-0 at crypto.com Arena, scoring 2.55 goals per game and allowing 3.36, a -0.82 differential. Artemi Panarin leads the Kings with 11 points and a team-high 7 goals, and Alex Laferriere has 7 assists, but the Kings' season keeps breaking in the same places.
Corey Perry and Drew Doughty are both day-to-day with undisclosed injuries. Keep an eye on whether Perry and Doughty play before placing a bet. Ottawa's list has the game's biggest name on it: Linus Ullmark is on injured reserve with a lower-body strain, and Thomas Chabot is out with an upper-body injury.
Key Factors
Ullmark's absence is the counterweight to everything above. He has been Ottawa's best player at a 1.33 goals-against average and a .945 save percentage, and without him the crease falls to Samuel Ersson at 4.59 and .835 and Jonas Johansson at 3.06 and .893. That is a steep drop, and it is why a game between an 8-5-0 team and a 3-6-2 team is priced as a coin flip. Los Angeles does not need to be good to win this; it needs Ottawa's backup situation to be as bad as the numbers say.
And yet the Kings have shown no ability to take gifts. Their penalty kill is 63.6 percent, the worst in the league, and their power play converts 15.2 percent against an Ottawa kill of 77.8 percent, while Ottawa's own power play at 12.7 percent is weak enough that the Kings' kill might survive it. Darcy Kuemper is at 3.47 and .889 for Los Angeles, no advantage there either.
The Kings are winless at home because they defend badly and finish worse, and a backup goaltender is the first excuse all season that actually fits them. Ottawa's skaters are good enough that the excuse has to be worth two goals, and Ersson's numbers, ugly as they are, came in a small run of games.
Ottawa is the better team by a wide margin and Los Angeles has not won at home, with a penalty kill that leaks against everyone. The Senators' crease is the risk, and it is priced into a pick'em. Take the Ottawa Senators moneyline at -110.
Game information
| DATE | Thursday (10/29) |
|---|---|
| START TIME | 9:00 PM CT |
| HOW TO WATCH | NHL |
| VENUE | crypto.com Arena |
| TOTAL | 5.5 |
| MONEYLINE | Ottawa Senators ML |
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