NHL Tuesday Betting Recap, April 19th

The Western Conference playoff race continues to be the story as the NHL’s regular-season hits the homestretch.

Phillip Danault scored early in the third period and Jonathan Quick made two of his 29 saves in the final 30 seconds as the visiting Los Angeles Kings held on for a 2-1 win against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

Adrian Kempe scored his 34th goal of the season to give Los Angeles the lead before Anaheim’s Adam Henrique tied the game at 5:36 of the second period.

The win gave Los Angeles a five-point lead on Vegas and Vancouver in the race for third place in the Pacific Division and pulled the Kings within two points of second-place Edmonton.

Quick won his 20th game giving him nine, 20-win seasons for the Kings.

The Kings haven’t won hearts just yet as Los Angeles (+4000) has the 16th-best odds to win the Stanley Cup championship.

Mikael Granlund had the only goal in the shootout as the Nashville Predators topped the Pacific Division-leading Calgary Flames 3-2 to move a step closer to their eighth consecutive appearance in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Filip Forsberg scored his 39th goal of the season and Matt Duchene had his 40th goal to give Nashville a two-goal lead in the second period. Calgary, which is on the verge of its third division title in the last 25 seasons, picked up two goals from Andrew Mangiapane to tie the game.

Juuse Saros had saves on Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, and Tyler Toffoli in the shootout as Nashville moved two points ahead of Dallas to hold onto the top wildcard position in the Western Conference. More importantly, Nashville is now six points up on both Vegas and Vancouver with only five games left to play.

Igor Shesterkin had 31 saves as the New York Rangers put the Winnipeg Jets on the brink of playoff extinction with a 3-0 win. The three-goal victory had an NHL betting lines Moneyline of +450.

It was the third shutout in a row and the fourth in the last six games for the Rangers who won 50 games for the fifth time in franchise history.

“It’s a nice accolade, it means a lot for our team,” said Ryan Strome, who had two goals in the victory. “We just come to the rink every day with a fresh mindset about the next game.”

The Rangers lead the NHL with a 1.33 (goals-against) average in the month of April.

Adam Fox had the other goal for the Rangers.

Winnipeg is 10 points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with five games left to play. The Jets would need Dallas to lose the rest of its games in regulation while winning their final five games and they also need Vegas and Vancouver to each finish with three points or less in their final five games to make the playoffs.

Aleksandar Barkov scored three times as the visiting Florida Panthers defeated the New York Islanders 3-2.

Barkov completed the hat trick 20 seconds into overtime as Florida won its 11th game in a row to move into a tie with Colorado for the most points (116) in the NHL. Florida has an eight-point lead in the Atlantic Division with six games left to play.

Jonathan Huberdeau assisted on all three goals while Sergei Bobrovsky had 24 saves.

Jonathan Huberdeau recorded three assists to boost his season totals to 30-81—111 (76 GP) and reclaim the lead in the NHL’s 2021-22 Art Ross Trophy race.#NHLStats: https://t.co/3HNs8a0Ypu pic.twitter.com/Mw2YdXjOOQ

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 20, 2022

Those who bet online might be interested to know that the Panthers have allowed two goals or less in five straight games.

Sebastian Aho and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored the goals for the Islanders and Ilya Sorokin stopped 39 shots.

The Islanders honored Hall of Fame winger Mike Bossy with a video tribute before the game as well as a moment of silence. Bossy, who was a star on the Islanders teams that won four straight Stanley Cup titles, Bossy died on April 15 after a battle with cancer.

Kevin Fiala had his 30th goal of the season and assisted on a goal by Matt Boldy to lead the visiting Minnesota Wild to a 2-0 win over the Montreal Canadiens.

Cam Talbot had 26 saves to record his third shutout of the season

Minnesota is tied with St. Louis at 103 points but the Wild have played one fewer game which puts them in second place in the Central Division at the current time.

Montreal’s Carey Price made 28 saves in his second start of the season, however, Montreal hasn’t scored a goal in either of Price’s starts.

Charlie McAvoy scored in the first minute of overtime to lift the visiting Boston Bruins to a 3-2 win against the St. Louis Blues.

Pavel Buchnevich and Robert Thomas scored for St. Louis which had won its last nine games. The Blues did pick up a point for the 13th straight game although failing to secure the second point prevented the Blues from remaining in sole possession of second place in the Central Division.

Jake DeBrusk and Taylor Hall had goals in the second period as Boston won back-to-back games for the first time since top goal-scorer David Pastrnak was sidelined. Pastrnak has missed the last seven games with the Bruins failing to score on 22 power-play opportunities without Pastrnak in the lineup.

Jeremy Swayman had 20 saves for Boston to win his second straight start. Boston pulled within a point of Tampa Bay for third place in the Atlantic Division standings.

Jakub Vrana scored twice including the go-ahead goal in the third period to lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. The win carried a NHL picks and predictions payout of +400 for the Red Wings.

Lucas Raymond and Oskar Sundqvist also scored for Detroit who had lost its last 13 games when Andrei Vasilevskiy was in net for the Lightning.

Speaking of goalies, Thomas Greiss had 38 saves for Detroit.

Ross Colton scored twice, Nikita Kucherov had the other goal for the Lightning, while Steven Stamkos had three assists to tie Martin St. Louis for the franchise career scoring record of 953 points.

Vasilevskiy had 27 saves but he fell to 0-4-1 in his last six appearances.

Jack Campbell had 36 saves to pick up his 30th win of the year as the Toronto Maple Leafs topped the Philadelphia Flyers 5-2 to strengthen their hold on second place in the Atlantic Division.

William Nylander and Ilya Mikheyev each had a goal and an assist for Toronto which won its second straight game without Auston Matthews, the NHL leader with 58 goals this season.

Toronto has won four games in a row and leads Tampa Bay by eight points in the race for second place in the Atlantic Division.

Ronnie Attard scored his second goal of the season and James van Riemsdyk also scored for the Flyers.

Alex Formenton had two goals while Adam Gaudette scored in the fifth round of the shootout as the visiting Ottawa Senators defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4-3.

J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser each had a goal and an assist but Vancouver was unable to hold onto a two-goal lead and squandered the opportunity to move ahead of Vegas and one point closer to Los Angeles in the Western Conference playoff race. The loss snapped Vancouver’s six-game winning streak.

Scott Reedy had his first career two-goal game to lead the San Jose Sharks to a 3-2 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the only game of the night between teams already eliminated from playoff contention.

Rudolfs Balcers also scored for San Jose while Jack Roslovic picked up both goals for Columbus.