Vegas +130 To Win

The Golden Knights hit a slight stumble with eight games left to go in the season. They were still comfortably in the playoffs, but hit a 3-5-2 stretch and boom, fired veteran coach Bruce Cassidy and brought in lovable (not really) John Tortorella.

Torts has more NHL coaching shirts than Fanatics. Even in hockey circles, he’s known for being direct. He did win a cup with Tampa in 2004. He also coached the Rangers, Columbus, Vancouver and Philly.

Talk about Vegas betting the odds. But instead of it going south, Vegas went 7-0-1 for Torts in the last eight games of the regular season. They finished with 95 points, fourth most in the West.

In the playoffs, they were down 2-1 to Utah in the first round and came back and won. They beat Anaheim 4-2 when that series was tied at 2.

In the conference finals, Colorado looked like the better team (ahem, they were my pick) and Vegas wiped them out in a sweep.

For you over/under folks (like me), Vegas has scored 58 goals in 16 playoff games, and allowed 38.

Conn Smythe Trophy Odds: Mitch Marner +165

On the surface, it doesn’t look like Torts has done anything significant to the Vegas line-up, but the Golden Knights are just executing at a high level.

Marner, freed from the Toronto curse, leads all scorers in the playoffs with 21 points. Jack Eichel, freed from the Sabres curse, has 16 assists. But the player to watch for Vegas is Pavel Dorofeyev, who is that hockey player who is always in the right place at the right time.

Carolina -155 To Win

The Hurricanes don’t have the same level of drama as Vegas. Coach Rod Brind’Amour is in his eighth season on the bench. Carolina finished the regular season second in goals scored in the NHL and fifth in goals allowed.

Carolina swept Ottawa in the first round, winning game two in double OT. (The best stat in the playoffs so far is that Carolina is 5-0 in overtime games.) The ‘Canes swept Torts' old Philly crew 4-0, outscoring them 13-5.

In game one of the conference finals, Montreal jumped all over Carolina in a 6-2 win, but after that Carolina clamped down. They won the last two games by a combined 10-1. Montreal looked like a team ready to play golf.

Regular fans don’t find Carolina exciting, because they are like an anaconda on defense and just smother teams. Goalie Frederik Andersen has faced only 289 shots in the playoffs, and has a goals against average of 1.41. Carolina hasn’t lost back-to-back games since January, and those two games were both road games.

Conn Smythe Odds: Andersen +220, Taylor Hall +600

Hall has the “Ray Bourque” role all sewn up, as a long-time player in the NHL who hasn’t won a Stanley Cup. He was the No. 1 overall pick way back in 2010.

Andersen is the easy pick here, but it’s really not fair, because the real stars of the Hurricanes are the defensemen. K’Andre Miller is a whopping +14 in the playoffs with eight goals and eight assists. Jaccob Slavin missed half of the regular season with injuries, but is another elite defender. You just don’t break through this Carolina defense.

What Data Matters And What Doesn’t

Vegas won both regular season meetings back in October, which is a long time—and a coach ago for Vegas. Andersen had one of his worst nights of the season against Vegas, allowing a season-high five goals.

The over/under number for game one is 5.5 and I’m taking the under. I’m also taking Carolina to win this series in six games. You don’t need a big market to have a big series.