Maple Leafs vs. Hurricanes prop bets: Roll with Auston Matthews
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Carolina Hurricanes are meeting for the second time in eight days.
The pregame narrative: Auston Matthews is putting plenty of pucks on net, making the over on his shot total and a bet on a goal a pair of wise wagers. John Tavares isn’t shooting much, leaning us to the under on his prop.
NHL odds as of 11:18 a.m. on 03/25/2023.
Maple Leafs vs. Hurricanes prop bets
Best Bet: Matthews over 3.5 shots on goal (-118)
Matthews is looking more like the player who scored 60 goals a season ago.
The Maple Leafs’ sniper opened up earlier this month about a hand injury that he has been dealing with this season. It’s fair to assume he came forward about the ailment because it’s starting to feel better based on recent results. He has 50 shots in his last 10 games, an impressive average of 5.0 per contest.
Even though this has been a bit of a disappointing year for Matthews, he’s still generating 4.2 shots per outing. That mark puts him firmly above what this total asks of him.
His opponent, Carolina, is a difficult matchup. The Hurricanes are allowing the fewest shots per game (25.8) this season. That didn’t stop Matthews, however, from putting five shots on goal in a meeting between these two squads on March 17.
Key stat: Matthews has four-plus shots in nine of his last 10 games.
Quick picks
Matthews to score a goal (+114): Matthews’ increase in shot volume is naturally leading to more goals. He has six goals in his last eight outings, including a marker against these very Canes just eight days ago.
He’s also coming off a two-goal performance against the Florida Panthers. Matthews leads the Buds in Corsi (20) and is second in scoring chances (12) across the last seven days, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Tavares under 2.5 shots (-112): Tavares has seven points in his last four contests and all are assists. The reason why he’s not scoring goals is that he isn’t shooting the puck. He has eight shots in his last six outings, and half of those came in Tuesday’s game against the New York Islanders.
He has fallen short of this total in five of his last six, including a zero-shot performance against Carolina in last week’s meeting.
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