NHL Tuesday best bets: Golden Knights to stay hot vs. Capitals

Monday night was a mixed bag on the ice. Rasmus Dahlin had a huge game, hitting the over on his shot total while collecting a couple of points in a blowout victory.

Unfortunately, the St. Louis Blues no-showed at home and were embarrassed by the Los Angeles Kings.

We'll take the split and move on to our best bets for a juicy slate of games Tuesday night.

The Vegas Golden Knights and Washington Capitals are on drastically different trajectories.

Vegas - now healthy - is playing excellent hockey at both ends of the ice with new head coach Bruce Cassidy behind the bench. The Golden Knights have won eight of their first 10 games and enter this contest on a four-game winning streak.

Things aren't as rosy in Washington. The Capitals have dealt with a bunch of injuries in the early going and have struggled to stay afloat, winning five of 10 games to date.

Sadly for Washington, things are going from bad to worse on the injury front. T.J. Oshie and John Carlson recently suffered injuries - although the latter doesn't appear to be serious - joining Tom Wilson, Nicklas Backstrom, Connor Brown, and Carl Hagelin on what's becoming a laundry list of sidelined players.

The Capitals don't have the depth to handle so many bodies going down, with the likes of Connor McMichael - 18 points in 71 career games - and Marcus Johansson - who hasn't topped 30 points since 2017-18 - being thrust into top-six roles they can't handle.

I think they'll struggle to create offense against a fresh Golden Knights team that ranks top five in high-danger chance suppression at five-on-five.

On the other side of things, Vegas has done a terrific job of breaking down opposing defenses all season long. Only the New Jersey Devils have generated more high-danger chances per 60 minutes thus far.

The Capitals, who sit 20th in high-danger chances against at five-on-five, are going to have their hands full trying to slow the Golden Knights down, especially in the latter half of a back-to-back.

Expect the Golden Knights to flex their muscles and make it five wins in a row.

Bet: Golden Knights (-155)

Everyone knew the Arizona Coyotes would be bad - check that, terrible. But the level of hockey we're seeing from them is almost unfathomable.

They've dropped six of their first eight games and controlled only 30% of the high-danger chances at full strength. No team has generated fewer, while only the Anaheim Ducks - by a hair - have conceded Grade A looks at a higher rate.

That's why it's not surprising the Coyotes have allowed six goals in half of their games thus far.

What's crazy is a couple of the exceptions were perhaps aided by scheduling. They lost 3-2 in each of their last two games, which were home dates against teams in back-to-backs - Jets and Rangers - that also dressed their much lesser backup goaltenders.

I expect Arizona to get back to its usual ways, and suffer a multi-goal defeat, against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.

Even without Aaron Ekblad, the Panthers continue to chug along and dominate their opponents on a nightly basis. They rank fifth in high-danger chance share and third in shot generation, just a step behind Carolina and New Jersey.

Florida should pepper the Coyotes from start to finish and dominate the run of play in this game. If the Panthers do, the scoreline will likely reflect that.

Bet: Panthers -1.5 (-115)

Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @ToddCordell.

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