Ottawa Senators vs Vegas Golden Knights Prediction: Best Bet for Tuesday

Ottawa's season has turned on Linus Ullmark, who is 7-1 with a 1.33 goals-against average, and Ullmark is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. The backup is 0-3 at 4.59 goals against, and the Senators take that drop into Las Vegas against a team scoring 3.54 goals per game.

The Matchup

Ottawa's 8-4-0 record is a goaltending story wearing a team costume. The Senators score 3.00 goals per game and allow 2.83, and the allow number belongs to Linus Ullmark, who is 7-1 with a 1.33 goals-against average and a .945 save percentage.

Tim Stutzle leads Ottawa with 16 points, Drake Batherson has 12, and Claude Giroux has 8, a forward group good enough to win ordinary games. The Senators beat the Rangers 7-4 on Saturday and lost 6-2 to San Jose last week, a fair sample of what happens when the game opens up in either direction.

Vegas scores 3.54 goals per game, the best attack in this game, behind Jack Eichel's 19 points, Mark Stone's 8 goals and 15 points, and Mitch Marner's 12 points in 11 games. The Golden Knights are 8-4-1 and 5-2-0 at home. Their own goaltending is ordinary, with Carter Hart at 2.76 and .889 and Adin Hill at 2.95 and .882, and they have lost three straight, to Tampa Bay, St. Louis, and Columbus in overtime, after a run of 6-2 wins. Vegas is the better team in a worse mood.

Key Factors

The crease gap is the largest single fact on Tuesday's slate. Ullmark is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury, and Samuel Ersson, who takes the Ottawa net, is 0-3 with a 4.59 goals-against average and an .835 save percentage. That is not a downgrade, it is a different team. Eichel and Stone against an .835 goaltender is the matchup the whole article hangs on, and Thomas Chabot being out with an upper-body injury removes Ottawa's best puck-moving defenseman in front of him.

Special teams offer Ottawa one theoretical answer that its own numbers take away. Vegas kills penalties at only 67.7 percent, a genuine weakness, but Ottawa's power play converts at 11.5 percent, one of the weakest on the slate. The unit that should punish the weakness cannot. At the other end, Vegas converts at 24.4 percent against an Ottawa kill of 79.1 percent, and Ersson behind a kill is a bad combination.

The counterpoint is Vegas itself. Three straight losses, two goaltenders under .890, and a team that has given back leads is not a side to trust blindly, and Stutzle is exactly the kind of skater who can turn a sloppy Vegas night into a track meet Ottawa wins 5-4. If Ersson simply plays average, the Senators' forwards are good enough to make this a game. Average, though, is a level Ersson has not reached in any start this season, and T-Mobile Arena is a poor place to go looking for it.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.