Wednesday’s Vegas Golden Knights at San Jose Sharks NHL matchup only matters to one of the two teams. Which way to lean at BMR’s top-rated sportsbooks?
Wednesday, May 12, 2021 – 09:00 PM EDT at SAP Center
The last fairly busy night of the very unusual 2021 NHL regular season is Wednesday with five games, and only a couple of them have any meaning whatsoever. One is definitely Vegas at San Jose, although it only matters for the visitors, which we will explain below.
It’s the regular-season finale for both, and Vegas goes for the shocking eight-game series sweep – of course, teams played each other more than usual this season as only division games took place. The Knights won the first seven vs. the Sharks by an average score of 3.9-2.0.
Winger Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone lead Vegas with 10 points each in the season series and both are plus-2. Pacioretty, who may not play here, has three goals and seven assists and Stone six goals and four assists. Marc-Andre Fleury is 5-0-0 with a 1.60 goals-against average and .942 save percentage. Both Oscar Dansk and Robin Lehner also got a start in the series. No way Dansk does Wednesday, and I’m guessing it will be Fleury.
Timo Meier, Tomas Hertl, Erik Karlsson and Evander Kane each lead San Jose with four points in the season series. Devan Dubnyk is 0-3-1 with a 3.63 GAA and .895 SV, Martin Jones is 0-1-1 with a 3.27 GAA and .891 SV, and Josef Korenar is 0-1-0 with a 4.09 GAA and .897 SV. He probably starts this one.
Overall, the favorite is 16-5 on NHL picks in the past 21 meetings. The total has gone under in eight of the past 11.
On the Bovada NHL futures odds, Vegas is a +160 favorite to win the West Division and +550 second-favorite to win its first Stanley Cup – there are no conferences this year.
The Knights could have clinched the West Division and Presidents’ Trophy – most points in the league and home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs – with a home win over West second-place Colorado on Monday, but the Avalanche pulled off a 2-1 upset. JT Compher had the game-winning goal at 11:33 of the third.
Alex Pietrangelo scored his sixth goal of the season in the loss and Robin Lehner allowed two goals on 21 shots. As noted above, it should be Marc-Andre Fleury in net here, and he’s 25-10-0 with a 2.04 GAA and .927 SV this year.
Vegas has 80 points, tied for the most in the NHL with Carolina, whose regular season is over. Colorado has 78 points but two games left compared to just one for the Golden Knights, so the Avalanche control their destiny for the West Division title and Presidents’ Trophy. Colorado is home to the LA Kings on both Wednesday and Thursday.
The one concern for Vegas is that the team is really banged up right now as it had just 15 skaters dressed Monday due to injuries and salary cap constraints. The likes of Ryan Reaves, Max Pacioretty, Tomas Nosek, Alec Martinez and Peyton Krebs were all unable to play. Pacioretty is first on the team with 24 goals and second with 51 points but hasn’t been in the lineup since May 1 and likely won’t be Wednesday.
The Golden Knights are 5-0 on NHL picks in their past five when scoring two goals or fewer in their previous game.
San Jose is second-to-last in the West Division with just 49 points, has one of the NHL’s worst goal differentials at minus-42 and was eliminated from playoff contention a long time ago. This franchise used to never miss the playoffs but will for a second straight year.
There probably will be a lot of offseason changes as there are eight unrestricted free agents, led by NHL all-times games played leader Patrick Marleau. A handful of other guys are restricted free agents and then of course every team will lose players to the Seattle Kraken in the expansion draft.
The Sharks are averaging just 2.65 goals per game this year and the only player with at least 20 goals is Evander Kane with 22. Not a single player has reached 50 points. One of San Jose’s best players, Logan Couture, hasn’t played since May 5 due to a lower-body injury and there’s really no reason for him to do so Wednesday.
Defensively, San Jose ranks third-worst in the league in allowing 3.45 goals per game. Veteran No. 1 netminder Martin Jones is 15-13-4 with a 3.28 GAA and .896 SV this year.
Perhaps the future is net is 23-year-old Josef Korenar. In 10 games, he’s 3-5-0 with a 3.17 GAA and .899 SV percentage – he’s a restricted free agent, though. Or maybe it’s 22-year-old Alexei Melnichuk. He got his first NHL start in the team’s most recent game Saturday, a 5-4 OT home loss to Arizona. Maybe next year’s No. 1 isn’t even on the roster right now.
San Jose is 3-7 on the NHL odds in its past 10 at home. This is an easy pick as only one team will care Wednesday.
NHL Pick: Golden Knights at -185 with BetOnline