Best NHL Bets Today: Rangers Poised to Tie Up the Series

After seemingly limping into the Eastern Conference Finals after a few lackluster performances against the Boston Bruins, the Florida Panthers looked to round back into form and dominated the New York Rangers in game one. Scoring was sparse for a majority of the contest with only the Panthers finding success at the back of the net. Even with a score of 3-0, it was a lot closer than it appeared and the value now shades towards the Rangers for game two. On top of our best bet, be sure to check out our breakdown of player props for game two.

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Florida Panthers vs. New York Rangers - Game 2 (8:00 PM, EST)

New York Rangers ML (-104) at FanDuel

It was as unfortunate of a showing as it could get for the New York Rangers, losing 3-0 with one of the Panthers goals being an own goal reflection off of the Rangers defenders stick. An oddity for how both teams were on opposite ends of the spectrum for momentum with the Rangers putting away the Hurricanes in impressive fashion while the Panthers limped into this matchup against the Bruins.

More frustrating yet for the Rangers, they actually outplayed the Panthers by a wide margin but suffered from poor luck in a humbling loss. Per shot analytic site MoneyPuck, they had the Rangers winning the contest in Expected Goals 2.68-2.14, as well as winning the game 61.1% of the time in 1000 simulations with the same quality of shots taking place in each simulation. That makes game one's actual result a rare occurrence, now throwing value towards the Rangers in game two.

Outside of Sam Bennet’s open net goal, the Panthers first two goals clocked in an Expected Goal of 0.03 from Matthew Tkachuk and 0.07 from Carter Verhaeghe. To illustrate how lackluster the Panthers offensive performance really was, only Carter Verhaeghe clocked in a full game's worth of Expected Goals of over 0.30. Sam Bennet did as well but his total was boosted from his open net goal.

This screams negative regression on the offensive end for the Panthers in game two, especially with the Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin playing as one of the best goalies in the league. Don’t expect another heaping of low quality shot attempts to get past him often as Shesterkin boasts a Save Percentage of .926 and a Goals Against per Game average of 2.37 since the start of the NHL Playoffs.

Back the Rangers offense to turn their shot attempts into goals in game two, especially with over four players clocking in an Expected Goal of over 0.30. Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky is a standout goalie in his own right, but he will be prone to regression on the defensive end against a spread out Rangers attack that faced minimal resistance while generating high quality Shots on Goal. Buy the Rangers at a discount in game two, playing far more competitive than what the game one score indicated.

Bet on New York Rangers ML at FanDuel