NHL's Eastern Conference Best Bets for Monday

After their Game 3 comeback attempt fell short, the New York Rangers will look to even up their series with the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight on the road.

Below, you can look at both Eastern Conference games on tonight’s NHL slate and at some of our best bets on the FanDuel Sportsbook.

The Capitals have surprised a lot of people in this series by taking a 2-1 lead over the President’s Trophy-winning Florida Panthers. Alex Ovechkin and the Caps pulled ahead in Game 3 and ended up blowing out the Panthers by a score of 6-1 behind solid goaltending from Ilya Samsonov, who stopped 29-of-30 shots in the win.

Goaltending has been one of the biggest question marks for this Capitals team all season long and it may start being one for the Panthers as well, who have allowed 11 goals in three games. It’s not like Washington has been getting better goaltending than the Panthers either, it’s more than the rest of the team has come to play and they’ve used timely goal scoring to pull ahead in the series. Not many believe the Caps could keep up with the NHL’s highest-scoring offense.

This Game 4 is going to tell you a lot about this Panthers team and whether or not what they were doing during the regular season was sustainable during playoff-style hockey. With that being said, this team is too deep, and they should find a way to win Game 4 by multiple goals. There isn’t really any value in the Panthers on the moneyline as they are sizable road favorites, but you can look towards them to win by multiple goals on the puck line, much like they did in Game 2.

Best Bets: Panthers puckline -1.5 (+132)

Game 3 saw the Rangers erase a 4-1 lead before ultimately falling by a score of 7-4, and a lot of people are being reminded of how good some of these star players on Pittsburgh truly are. It’s not to say this team is turning the clock back to their Stanley Cup days, but they certainly are proving to be a tough opponent for the Rangers, who haven’t exactly gotten the goaltending they’ve been accustomed to from Igor Shesterkin. The Russian netminder will likely take home the Vezina trophy this season, but the Rangers have allowed 13 goals through three games and that’s not something you’d have expected heading into this series.

You have to also wonder if the Penguins being on their third-string goalie will catch up to them, but Tristian Jarry has started skating again which is a good sign if Pittsburgh can move forward in the playoffs. This is basically a toss-up for both sides with the Penguins and Rangers similarly priced on the moneyline, and we expect a bounce-back effort from the Blueshirts and Shesterkin, much like they showed us in Game 2, after losing in triple-overtime in Game 1.

Best Bets: Rangers moneyline (-118)