Best NHL player prop bets (March. 4): Back Rantanen to pepper the net vs. Red Wings
Join Daily Faceoff’s Nick Martin as he handicaps the best NHL player props available at online sportsbooks on Tuesday night.
Adam Fantilli Over 0.5 points: -110 Sports Interaction
The red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets will hope to earn two more critical points when they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday evening. While scoring on Andrei Vasilevskiy and the Lightning has proven to be quite a difficult task for opponents recently, Tampa Bay will be playing back-to-back and will presumably start backup goaltender Jonas Johansson in this matchup.
Oddsmakers don’t seem to be giving enough credit to the fact that the Blue Jackets could generate some offense and potentially even win this game. At the current price of +140, there looks to be value betting Columbus to win the game, and it also looks like a good opportunity to back one of its hottest skaters finding the scoresheet at a good number.
We touched last Thursday on the excellent play of the Blue Jackets’ top line of Fantilli, Kirill Marchenko, and Dmitri Voronkov. After two strong performances in a critical home-and-home set with the Detroit Red Wings, the trio has now outscored opponents 16-7 and scored 3.37 goals per 60.
To look at a larger sample of play, Marchenko and Voronkov actually held even more dominant results playing alongside Sean Monahan prior to his injury. Even Still, Fantilli has done a tremendous job since overtaking the role at the team’s No. 1 center, and the 2023 third overall pick looks to be elevating his game at the right time.
Fantilli has been a point-per-game player over the last 20 games, recording at least one point in 15 of those matchups.
With Johansson in goal and Tampa Bay playing back-to-back, this sets up as a fairly breakeven matchup for the Blue Jackets to produce offensively, and a price of -110 for a prop that has hit in 75% of games over a 20-game sample looks quite appealing as a result.
The Blue Jackets are also priced at +2000 to be the highest scoring team on Tuesday’s NHL slate, and that looks to be a longshot worthy of a small wager.
Mikko Rantanen Over 2.5 shots on goal: -118 Sports Interaction
The Carolina Hurricanes are just 5-6-1 since acquiring Rantanen, and have scored only 2.50 goals per game. Rantanen has produced just six points in 11 games played in that span (he missed one due to injury), and the possibility that the trade could turn out to be a disaster for the Hurricanes has been a narrative which the NHL’s mainstream media has feasted upon.
Rantanen has looked motivated to turn that narrative around coming out of the 4 Nations Face-Off, recording three points in three games.
From a shot volume perspective, the trade has not led to much of a decline for Rantanen, as he averaged 3.18 shots on goal with Carolina and recorded over 2.5 shots in eight of 11 appearances with the team. He’s also averaged 6.27 attempts per game in that span, which suggests his recent output of shots on target will hold true.
Rantanen is currently skating with Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov at even strength, and in a small sample they have generated plenty of chances. In 38.4 minutes together, they have generated 4.38 xGF/60, and 71.91 shot attempts per 60.
The Detroit Red Wings provide a fairly neutral matchup for opposing shooters, as over the last 10 games they have allowed 27.92 shots against per 60.
At -118, there looks to be value backing Rantanen to once again record over 2.5 shots on goal, something he did in 72.7% of matchups with the Hurricanes.
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