Maple Leafs vs. Kraken picks and odds Feb. 26: Betting lines, prop bets and predictions

The Toronto Maple Leafs will visit Climate Pledge Arena for the second time in franchise history on Sunday to take on the Seattle Kraken.

The pregame narrative: The Maple Leafs are catching the Kraken during a slump, and they aren’t a good home team at the best of times. Ryan O’Reilly is no lock to find the scoresheet and Seattle is having trouble putting pucks on net.

NHL odds as of 9:58 a.m. on 02/26/2023.

Maple Leafs vs. Kraken picks

Best Bet:Maple Leafs -1(+105)

Backing Toronto on a West Coast road trip isn’t always the wisest move, but we like the team’s chances in Seattle.

Despite putting together a fine season, the Kraken have a significantly better record on the road (17-9-3) than at home (15-11-3). Seattle is also in the midst of an ugly 3-9 stretch. During that time the team has been outscored 33-25.

Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs are 3-1-0 since acquiring O’Reilly and Noel Acciari — with a plus-eight goal differential.

Toronto has a clear edge over Seattle at the top of its roster, but the mismatch that intrigues us the most is on special teams.

The Maple Leafs are significantly better than the Kraken on the power play and the penalty kill, which could play a massive role in deciding this game’s outcome.

Key stat: The Kraken rank 28th in the NHL in points (seven) since February 1.

Quick picks

O'Reilly not to score a point (-109): Although O’Reilly recently made headlines with a massive four-point outing on February 21, he’s still the type of player less likely to record a point than not — making this good value at near-even money.

The veteran centre has points in just 43.2% of his games this season, and the move to the Maple Leafs hasn’t radically improved his situation. O’Reilly is averaging approximately two fewer minutes of ice time with his new team and isn’t skating on Toronto’s top power play unit.

While the 32-year-old has better teammates to work with on Sunday, he’ll be skating with William Nylander for the first time and we’re not betting on a new line clicking right away.

Kraken under 29.5 shots (-112): This line is right near Seattle’s season average (29.8), but there are a couple of reasons to believe the team will fall short on Sunday.

The first is that the Maple Leafs are excellent at suppressing shots. Only five teams allow fewer attempts on goal than Toronto on a per-game basis (29.0).

Seattle is also in an offensive funk. In the Kraken’s last seven games, they’ve hit this under five times, and one of their overs came by a single shot.

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