Our quest to out-pace the Kings’ point percentage pushes on. After Thursday’s game, Tonge’s Ticket is 13/30, for a .433 percentage, while the Kings improved their point percentage to .467. Saturday will see a rematch between the Kings and the Arizona Coyotes, who are the only team standing in their way of holding the last playoff spot in the West.
LA’s lineup will look a little different on Saturday, as Jaret Anderson-Dolan will be unavailable due to an upper body injury and Cal Petersen will start in goal. Anderson-Dolan has five points in six games on the year and has been red hot as of late. Meanwhile, Saturday will mark the first game of Petersen’s career against the Coyotes.
For Arizona, Darcy Kuemper is likely to get the nod in net once again. In the previous match up, the former Kings goalie stopped 27 of 29 shots. His lowest save percentage in his last five starts is a .920, so we’re likely looking at another low-scoring affair.
Let’s explore the best bets for Saturday’s game:
Under 5.5 goals
Yes, we’re running this one back. Since the 2018-19 season, the two teams have only had one game with more than five goals, and that was a 4-2 Coyotes victory on March 9, 2019. Until these two teams can prove that they can score against each other, the under is going to be a smart bet. DraftKings offers -136 odds on this bet.
Over 1.5 first period goals
Last game, we went for the over on the third period, playing off of Arizona’s strange split, where they had 10 more combined goals in the final period than either the first or second. On the Kings side, five of their last six games have featured two or more first period goals. They’ve now improved to 4-0-0 on the year when leading after one and it seems they’re starting to understand that playing from behind all year isn’t a good idea.
Arizona will be hungry to bounce back after dropping the extra point in the shootout. As we said before, they’re all that stands in the way of the Kings sliding into a playoff spot, and they will be motivated to hold onto that four seed. Expect both teams to come out flying, so we’ll take the -103 odds here.
Kings 60 minute line
Matt Roy and Blake Lizotte are in the lineup, Sean Walker’s return should be on the way, and Rasmus Kupari, the AHL’s leading scorer, was just recalled to the taxi squad. LA has won three in a row and just got a shutout from a goalie whose underlying analytics look among the worst in the league. The roller coaster the Kings are on seems to be on an upward trajectory.
With Cal Petersen in net and momentum behind the team, I like the Kings to take this one in regulation. The +220 odds on DraftKings are pretty nice as well. If you’re a little less sure the Kings take this in 60 minutes, their money line is +138, which is still good odds, as there’s no way the Coyotes should be a -159 favorite.
Looking for more betting picks? Make sure you follow @HockeysBestBets for my daily picks from around the league. You can also follow my personal account at @AndyTonge1 for my insight on the Kings and much more. Good luck and happy betting!