Montreal Canadiens (8-25-7) vs. Minnesota Wild (24-10-3)
January 24, 2022 8:00 pm EDT
The Line: Minnesota Wild -330 / Montreal Canadiens +275; Over/Under: -5.5
(Get latest betting odds)
The Montreal Canadiens and the Minnesota Wild meet in NHL action from the Xcel Energy Center on Monday night.
The Montreal Canadiens come into this game on the heels of a 3-2 OT loss to Colorado last time out. Nick Suzuki leads the Habs in scoring with 24 points including a team-high 8 goals and 16 assists while Tyler Toffoli also has 14 assists with his 21 points and Josh Anderson’s posted a team-high 8 goals this season. Jake Allen has seen the majority of the action in goal for Montreal, going 5-16-2 with a 3.15 GAA and a .901 save percentage this season.
The Minnesota Wild will look to build on a 4-3 OT win over the Chicago Blackhawks last time out. Kirill Kaprizov leads the Wild in scoring with 47 points including a team-high 30 assists as well as 17 goals while Ryan Hartman has 32 points with a team-high 18 goals, 14 assists and a team-best +31 plus/minus rating this season. Marcus Foligno also has 16 goals while Mats Zuccarello has 36 points with 11 goals and 25 assists this season. Cam Talbot has seen the majority of Minnesota’s action in goal, going 15-8-1 with a 3.00 GAA and a .909 save percentage while Kaapo Kahkonen is 9-2-2 with a 2.48 GAA and a .918 save percentage this season.
Montreal is 4-22 in their last 26 games as a road underdog and 6-20 in their last 26 games against the Western Conference while the over is 4-1-1 in their last 6 games after scoring 2 goals or less in the previous game. Minnesota is 5-1 in their last 6 games overall and 42-15 in their last 57 games as a favorite while the over is 22-6 in their last 28 home games.
The Wild may be the heavy favorites here, but realistically, I don’t trust either team. Minnesota because they can’t seem to consistently cover the puck line (and that’s really the only way to get any value out of Minnesota here) and Montreal, well, they’re Montreal and that stinks alone. Instead, I’m going to side with the over as both teams have shown a recent ability to find some sort of offense and the goaltending and defense has had its issues as well as of late.
