Face-off: 1900 ET, 29/04/2022
Arena: Centre Bell
Florida wrapped up the Presidents’ Trophy last night despite resting some key players and are also expected to take care of Montreal.
The Panthers have won three previous head-to-head meetings this term by an aggregate score of 16-9 and the goals should flow again at Centre Bell.
We reckon 2.0 for an away win and over 5.5 scores is a solid selection for our Montreal Canadiens vs Florida Panthers predictions.
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Montreal Canadiens Odds
To be fair, Montreal never looked like throwing in the towel during a tough run-in and were rewarded with a welcome win on Wednesday.
The Canadiens rallied from nine straight defeats to upset the Rangers 4-3 in New York, with Jeff Petry netting the decider with 31 seconds left.
That was Petry’s second strike, while Mike Hoffman and Ryan Poehling also scored and Christian Dvorak had two assists.
Head coach Martin St Louis commented: “We stopped the bleeding tonight, that’s for sure. It feels good.
“If we can find a way to play a hard last game, which I think we will because it’s going to be the last one, it’s going to be at home, then we can finish on a good note.”
Admittedly, the Rangers were without seven regulars rested ahead of the playoffs, but it could be a similar scenario here.
Florida do have more strength in depth, though, so we’ll settle for 2.6 for an away win in regulation and both teams to score twice from the NHL odds.
Florida Panthers Odds
Florida didn’t need Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau to smash Ottawa 4-0 at Canadian Tire Centre.
“It’s a tribute to our group that whoever plays, we compete and we play hard,” beamed interim head coach Andrew Brunette.
“We do the right things and we play the right way and we’ve bought into what we’re trying to do. It was fun.”
The Panthers fell off from a run of 13 straight wins when suffering two defeats this week, but got back on track versus the Senators.
Forward Eetu Luostarinen said: “We’re just trying to play our best and keep building our game. I think it’s a good thing for when we start to get going into the playoffs.”
Florida scored three times in the final period last night but are usually in control earlier and then don’t mind the game opening up.
Let’s go with 12.0 for the Panthers to prevail 5-2 at Centre Bell to finish off our NHL predictions.
Additional stats
Last result:
New York Rangers 3-4 MONTREAL
Ottawa 0-4 FLORIDA
Season head-to-head: Florida 7-4 Montreal, Montreal 3-4 Florida, Florida 5-2 Montreal
