Maple Leafs vs. Senators prop bets: Bet on Matthews and Rielly

The Battle of Ontario will be re-ignited when the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Ottawa Senators tonight.

The pregame narrative: Auston Matthews is humming and we don’t expect that to stop against a shorthanded Senators team. We’re backing Matthews’ shot prop and power-play point total and are also expecting Morgan Rielly to find the stat sheet.

NHL odds as of 10:57 a.m. on 04/01/2023.

Maple Leafs vs. Senators prop bets

Best Bet: Matthews over 4.5 shots (+105)

You’ve probably seen this bet a lot from us lately and that’s because it just keeps on hitting.

Matthews has cleared this total in seven of his past 10 games, including each of his past three. He accumulated 77 shots in March, which was the second-most in the NHL behind only David Pastrnak (78).

It appears that Matthews’ nagging wrist injury is fully in the rear-view mirror and that gives us the utmost confidence that Toronto’s superstar will continue peppering opposing goaltenders.

Matthews fell just shy of this total when he played the Senators on March 18 with four shots on goal, but he did record seven SOG when these teams met earlier this season. He shouldn’t face much resistance in tonight’s matchup and that’s because Ottawa’s defence is very thin.

Thomas Chabot, Travis Hamonic and Jakob Chychrun will all miss tonight’s contest. That defensive trio would likely have shaded Matthews throughout the game. Expect the Leafs’ centre to eat up Ottawa’s second-string D-men.

Key stat: Matthews has 25 shots in his past three games.

Quick picks

Matthews over 0.5 PP points (+115): Matthews has only registered a power-play point in two of his past seven games but we’ve got reason to believe Toronto will thrive on the man advantage tonight.

The Senators have taken the second-most penalties in the NHL this season (268). Ottawa is really good at killing those penalties — its 81.72% PK rate ranks 10th — but it’ll be without some main contributers tonight.

Hamonic’s 3:16 of short-handed ice time per game is the most among all Senators while Chychrun’s 1:47 ranks 10th. Expect Toronto and Matthews to capitalize with those two sidelined.

Rielly to record 1+ point (-122): It seems Rielly is heating up at the perfect time. Toronto’s defenceman has picked up points in five of his past seven games, with seven total points in that span.

Rielly remains a fixture on Toronto’s top power-play unit, and that gives us a possibility of killing two birds with one stone regarding Matthews’ PP prop.

That said, Rielly still has five even-strength points in his last seven games and is more than capable of finding the scoresheet at 5v5.