NHL Best Bets for Monday 10/21/24

Whether it's moneylines or total goals, there are plenty of ways to bet on the NHL action all season. It's a long 82-game campaign, meaning that the best selections of each night can be very different based on backup goalies coming into play, injuries that add up, and if teams are due for positive or negative swings.

For additional NHL insights, check out FanDuel Research's daily NHL projections, powered by numberFire.

Let's dive into the best bets for tonight.

Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. All NHL betting odds and totals are from the NHL odds at FanDuel Sportsbook. All advanced statistics are used from MoneyPuck.com and NaturalStatTrick.com. Lineup notes come from Daily Faceoff.

NHL Betting Picks Today

Get inside the crease and access who is starting in tonight’s NHL matchups and save projections with SportsGrid’s Starting Goalies Page.

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

Maple Leafs Moneyline -142

There may be only one game on tap Monday night, but it’s one you want to tune into. The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking to reverse course following a decisive loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday night. Thankfully, they’re hosting a Tampa Bay Lightning squad that has overachieved relative to their underlying metrics and is poised for regression over their coming sample.

Toronto remains an elite analytics team. Through the season's first two weeks, the Leafs sit in the top 10 in most advanced categories -- including a 61.1% high-danger chance rating, 56.1% shots-for percentage, and 53.1% expected goals-for rating. As expected, those metrics are evident in their game scores, with the Original Six franchise out-chancing their opponents in high-danger opportunities in all but one of their five games. Moreover, three opponents have been held to five or fewer such chances.

With the Leafs getting the benefit of last change for the fourth straight game, those trends can hold steady into Monday’s Atlantic Division affair.

While the Lightning’s early-season results have been inspiring, they are also unsustainable. Tampa Bay is skating around with an inflated 68.8% actual goals-for rating, nearly 20.0 percentage points higher than their expected value of 49.1%. That untenable position is also captured in their PDO, with the Lightning’s combined shooting and save percentages teetering at 1.074 and putting them on the verge of regression. Correction is imminent and unforgiving.

The Lightning can’t continue to play like they have and win games. They meet their match in Toronto on Monday night.

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