The New Jersey Devils and the Montreal Canadiens meet in NHL action from the Bell Centre on Saturday night. Let’s dive into the odds, injuries, matchup history and make a prediction for this game.
Odds
New Jersey is a -275 road favorite while the Canadiens are +220 home underdogs. The total for this game is set at 6.5 goals.
Injuries
For New Jersey, Mackenzie Blackwood is still out indefinitely with a lower body injury while Montreal has a litany of injuries, with Brendan Gallagher still out for this game. Justin Barron, Christian Dvorak and Justin Harris are all questionable for this game for Montreal.
Matchup History
Montreal’s 5-2 win back on February 21st, 2023, made it four straight meetings between these two teams without back-to-back winners.
Trends
New Jersey is 22-4 in their last 26 games against a team with a losing record and 10-2 in their last 12 Saturday games while the over is 7-1 in their last 8 games overall. Montreal is 49-103 in their last 152 games overall and 1-4 in their last 5 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the over is 6-0 in their last 6 games against the Metropolitan division.
Pick
I’m backing Montreal on the puck line here. I think New Jersey is the better team and they’re playing really well on the road, but they’ve also won a lot of close games as of late and wouldn’t be surprised if this one was close as well. Both have played their fair share of one goal games recently so in what could be another 3-2 or 4-3 kind of game, give me Montreal +1.5.