Vancouver Canucks vs. Vegas Golden Knights – 9/3/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Vancouver Canucks and Vegas Golden Knights meet Thursday in game six of the NHL West Second Round at the Rogers Place.    

The Vancouver Canucks need another win to save their season and force a game seven on Friday. The Vancouver Canucks are averaging 2.93 goals per game and are scoring on 23 percent of their power play opportunities. Bo Horvat leads Vancouver with nine goals, Quinn Hughes has 13 assists and Alexander Edler has 36 shots on goal. Defensively, the Vancouver Canucks are allowing 2.8 goals per game and are killing 79 percent of their opponents power plays. Jacob Markstrom has given up 40 goals on 491 shots faced and Thatcher Demko has allowed one goal on 48 shots.

The Vegas Golden Knights look to advance to their second conference final in their first three seasons. The Vegas Golden Knights are averaging 3.54 goals per game and are scoring on 22.2 percent of their power play opportunities. Alex Tuch leads Vegas with seven goals, Shea Theodore has 10 assists and Nate Schmidt has 44 shots on goal. Defensively, the Vegas Golden Knights are allowing 2.38 goals per game and are killing 85.4 percent of their opponents power plays. Robin Lehner has given up 21 goals on 257 shots faced and Marc-Andre Fleury has allowed eight goals on 75 shots.

The Golden Knights are 17-5 in their last 22 games as a favorite, 11-3 in their last 14 games playing on 1 days rest and 21-5 in their last 26 overall. The Canucks are 8-2 in their last 10 games playing on 1 days rest and 2-6 in their last 8 vs. Pacific. The over is 5-2 in Golden Knights last 7 games playing on 1 days rest. The Golden Knights are 6-1 in the last 7 meetings in Vancouver and 11-4 in the last 15 meetings. The favorite is 10-4 in the last 14 meetings.

The Vancouver Canucks showed some defense for once in this series with a 2-1 victory in game five, cashing as a +195 underdog. The issue is the Canucks haven’t been able to string together solid performances in this series, and the Vegas Golden Knights are still the most impressive and the team to beat currently. Vegas has given us little reason to go against them in these playoffs and each of their last six victories over the Canucks have been decided by two or more goals. I’m going to back the Golden Knights and the PL.