Philadelphia Flyers vs. New York Islanders – 9/5/20 NHL Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Islanders meet in game seven of their Eastern Conference semi-final series in NHL action from Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.

The Philadelphia Flyers will look to advance to the Eastern Conference finals after battling back from a 3-1 series deficit with back-to-back overtime wins including a 5-4 win for the Flyers over the Islanders in game six last time out. Kevin Hayes opened the scoring for the Flyers just after the midway point of the opening period and James van Riemsdyk would double the lead just 1:34 later. Derick Brassard pulled a goal back for New York with less than four minutes to go in the first and Matt Martin tied the game at two 1:25 into the second period. Anders Lee made it 3-2 New York just 1:42 later, but Marco Raffl would tie the game at three for Philly with under seven minutes to go in the second period. Mathew Barzal would push New York in front in the last minute of the second period, but Philadelphia would tie the game again at four when Scott Laughton buried for the Flyers just before the midway point of the third period. The rest of the third solved nothing, so it was off to overtime where we had to wait until there was five minutes to play in the second OT before Ivan Provorov fired home the winner for the Flyers and forced an all-deciding seventh game in the process.

Carter Hart got the win in goal for Philadelphia after stopping 49 of 53 shots faced in the winning effort while Semyon Varlamov ended up with the loss between the pipes for New York after giving up all 5 goals on 31 shots faced in defeat.

New York is 3-11 in their last 14 conference semi-final games and 2-9 in their last 11 Saturday games while the over is 3-1-1 in their last 5 games overall. Philadelphia is 20-7 in their last 27 games overall and 14-5 in their last 19 games following a win while the under is 12-4-2 in their last 18 games overall. The over is 14-3-1 in the last 18 meetings between these two teams.

The over has dominated the matchup between the Flyers and Islanders but in a winner take all game seven, I feel like I have to revert to the old cliché that this is going to be a defensive battle. I genuinely believe that neither side is going to go flying out of the gate here as to not be the side that makes the first mistake if nothing else. I’ll side with the under as my free play for this game, but my stronger play is on who wins this game and advances to the conference finals and I have that available as a premium pick that you can find here.