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Bet on Capitals and Rangers to go scoreless in first period their Game 2 playoff matchup

Two plus-money plays for Tuesday’s NHL action

Evgeny Kuznetsov #92 of the Washington Capitals scores a goal on goalie Jaroslav Halak #41 of the New York Rangers during the third period at Capital One Arena on February 25, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Evgeny Kuznetsov #92 of the Washington Capitals scores a goal on goalie Jaroslav Halak #41 of the New York Rangers during the third period at Capital One Arena on February 25, 2023 in Washington, DC.Read morePatrick Smith / Getty Images
    by Michael Leboff, Action Network
    Published 

The 2023-24 Stanley Cup Playoffs are off to a crazy start and there are four more games coming your way on Tuesday night. Let’s get into a couple of our favorite plays for Night 4 of the postseason.

Washington Capitals (+225) vs. New York Rangers (-278), O/U: 5.5

The Washington Capitals can really only win one way in this matchup. They need to completely take the pace out of the game and turn it into a rock fight. The New York Rangers know this and showed in Game 1 that they’ll have no issue waiting out the Caps and then pouncing on their opportunities as the night drags on. There’s no need for the Blueshirts to force anything.

That’s why I think we’ll see a lot of very low-event first periods in this series. The Caps will look to come out and frustrate the Rangers, while the Blueshirts will keep things close to the vest in order to not let Washington get off to a cheap lead.

The first period of this series ended 0-0 and I don’t think there’s any reason not to go back to the well on Tuesday night.

  1. The Bet: 1P under 0.5 goals (+350, FanDuel)

» READ MORE: Stanley Cup Playoffs predictions: Best bets for each conference, finals winner

Tampa Bay Lightning (+146) vs. Florida Panthers (-178), O/U: 5.5

Game 1 of the Sunshine Showdown looked closer than it actually played out. The Florida Panthers were much better at 5-on-5 than the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had some moments but ultimately were outplayed. It’s hard to imagine this series getting off that script all that much, barring anything unforeseen.

Knowing that they’re likely to be outplayed at 5-on-5, the Lightning will need to make hay on special teams. The Panthers take more penalties than just about anybody in the NHL, but their penalty kill was sharp on Sunday and Sergei Bobrovsky was on his game in goal.

With Tampa looking to get this game off the rails, I’d imagine they’d play with a little more risk in their game and push the pace. That will be just fine with the Panthers, who should continue to get plenty of good looks at 5-on-5 and their power play.

Andrei Vasilevskiy was terrific in Game 1, but he won’t be able to stand on his head like that night after night and I think the Cats pour it on.

  1. The Bet: Panthers Team Total Over 3.5 (+108, FanDuel)

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