Vancouver Canucks vs. Minnesota Wild – NHL Playoff Series Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Wild meet in a five-game NHL play-in series. 

The Vancouver Canucks ended their regular season losing seven of their last 11 games and having issues at times finding the back of the net. The Vancouver Canucks averaged 3.2 goals per game while allowing 3.1 goals per game. The Vancouver Canucks are averaging 31.2 shots per game while scoring on 23.7 precent of their power plays, and they’re allowing 33.3 shots per game while killing 80.5 percent of their power plays. J.T. Miller leads the Canucks with 27 goals, Quinn Hughes has 45 assists and Bo Horvat has 178 shots. Jacob Markstrom has allowed 117 goals on 1,420 shot attempts and Thatcher Demko has given up 78 goals on 822 shots faced. The Vancouver Canucks should be able to fix their late offensive issues given that they’re top-10 in the league in goals per game and power play percentage, but we do have to question a franchise that hasn’t experienced a playoff type atmosphere since the 2014-15 season. 

The Minnesota Wild ended their season playing some of their best hockey with wins in eight of their last 11 games. The Minnesota Wild averaged 3.2 goals per game while allowing 3.1 goals per game. The Minnesota Wild are averaging 30.1 shots per game while scoring on 21.3 precent of their power plays, and they’re allowing 30.7 shots per game while killing 77.2 percent of their power plays. Zach Parise leads the Wild with 25 goals, Ryan Suter has 40 assists and Kevin Fiala has 175 shots. Alex Stalock has allowed 97 goals on 1,082 shot attempts and Devan Dubnyk has given up 93 goals on 849 shots faced. The Minnesota Wild are an experienced playoff team and were one of the hottest teams in the league since Dean Evason took over the squad, so it’s going to be interesting to see if they can pick up right where they left off with the long layoff.

These playoff series aren’t easy to pick when you have no idea how any of these teams are going to show up. Players may be out of shape a bit and the teams we saw back in March likely won’t be able to pick up where they left off. With that said, the Minnesota Wild were playing the better hockey entering the unwanted break and they have more playoff experience on their roster overall, as this franchise has been a constant the last several years in these type of situations. The Wld were also 2-1 against the Canucks this season and that was when this was still a struggling team trying to figure things out. While it’s a small sample size, the Wild looked a lot better once Evason took over.

I’ll take a shot with the Wild and the plus money.