Winnipeg Jets vs Montreal Canadiens Prediction: Best Bet for Tuesday

Montreal has won five straight and Winnipeg has lost five straight, and the scores underneath those streaks are wider than the streaks themselves. The Jets score 2.27 goals per game, the weakest attack on the Tuesday slate, and they walk into the loudest building in the league on Tuesday night.

The Matchup

Montreal is 9-3-2 with a plus-0.29 differential per game, scoring 3.29 and allowing 3.00, and the Canadiens have won five in a row to get there. Cole Caufield leads the team with 8 goals, and Lane Hutson runs the blue line with 10 assists and a team-high 13 points, so Montreal creates offense from the back end in a way Winnipeg struggles to contain. Jacob Fowler has been the story in net, with a 1.84 goals-against average, a .932 save percentage and two shutouts, numbers that turn a decent defensive team into a hard one to beat.

Winnipeg is 4-8-3 and sinking. The Jets score just 2.27 goals per game and allow 3.60, a minus-1.33 differential that is the worst in this matchup by a wide margin, and they have lost five straight, four of them by two goals or more.

Kyle Connor has 11 goals and 15 points and Mark Scheifele has 10 assists, but the production stops almost as soon as it starts. Winnipeg's report does not help. Josh Morrissey, the defenseman who moves the puck for the Jets, is on injured reserve with a wrist injury, and Vladislav Namestnikov is also on injured reserve.

Montreal is not healthy either, and that is the tension in the game. Nick Suzuki is out with an upper-body injury and is not expected back until November 18, Mike Matheson is out with a lower-body injury, and Sam Montembeault and Ivan Demidov are on injured reserve. Kirby Dach is day to day with an illness. Keep an eye on whether Dach plays before placing a bet.

Key Factors

The margin case rests on how Winnipeg loses. A team scoring 2.27 goals per game cannot chase, so when the Jets fall behind they have to open up, and opening up against Caufield and Hutson is how a one-goal game becomes a three-goal game.

Four of Winnipeg's five straight losses have been by two or more, and Montreal's last five wins include a shutout and two games where the Canadiens allowed a single goal. Fowler is the reason those margins hold up late, because a comeback needs pucks to beat him, and almost nothing has.

Special teams remove Winnipeg's other route back. The Jets convert 16.7 percent on the power play and kill 70.5 percent, while Montreal's kill sits at 81.8 percent, so the man advantage is unlikely to rescue a Jets team that cannot score at even strength. The counterpoint is Montreal's injury list, which is long enough to matter.

Without Suzuki and Matheson the Canadiens are thinner at both ends, and if Winnipeg gets an early goal the Bell Centre gets tight and the two-goal ask gets hard. That is a real risk. It is outweighed by five straight losses built on an offense that has stopped scoring.

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.