Philadelphia is moving in the right direction. Even facing a top team, the Flyers are slightly underrated in Saturday’s matinee.
Flyers looking surprisingly solid
The Philadelphia Flyers head into Saturday’s matinee on a three-game winning streak. For the first time in a year, there is reason for optimism in Philadelphia. The Flyers are winning games, and they could have won even more. John Tortorella’s squad is a top-quarter team in xG stats, something that would have been hard to believe last season.
Travis Konecny has emerged once again with ten goals already. Among the other experienced players, Cam Atkinson has had a convincing return to a top six role after serious injury woes. Despite a few injuries on defense, the Flyers don’t have a single absence that weakens the lineup.
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We must speculate about the goalie choice, as this is the first game of a back-to-back set. As opponents, Vegas and the Flyers’ Sunday opponent Columbus are two extremes. Philadelphia will probably want to maximize their point expectation against Vegas. That’s because against Columbus, the Flyers will be clear favorites despite their choice of goalie. Carter Hart is therefore likely to start on Saturday against Vegas.
No Cup hangover whatsoever
With about a fifth of the regular season now behind us, there’s no talk of a championship hangover in Vegas. The Golden Knights lead the Western Conference with a convincing record of 13-3-1. Familiar names have contributed to that early success. Jack Eichel, William Karlsson and Mark Stone have all produced at PPG pace or better. As for players in depth roles, Michael Amadio has continued his solid two-way performance from last season. In addition to taking on the challenging shutdown role, Amadio has racked up a respectable total of nine points.
Vegas hasn’t quite been itself on the xG front so far. Normally, the team that dominates expected goals has so far only been average. As the season progresses, the Golden Knights will likely take their place in the top 5 of xG comparisons.
Solid depth forward Nicolas Roy returned to the lineup in the last game. The Golden Knights are probably still missing Nicolas Hague in defense and Chandler Stephenson in offense. However, the roster is deep, and these absences have little impact on the probability distribution.
Let’s go, Flyers
Vegas’ strong form is clearly reflected in the odds. Unibet’s Tie No Bet pick stands at +155 for the Flyers. This is the same as Draw No Bet or a handicap of +0, meaning that we win if Philadelphia wins the game in regulation, get our wager refunded if the 60-minute result is a tie, and lose if the Flyers lose in regulation.
In my estimation, anything better than +143 would do fine for this selection. It’s certainly far from the value we picked up last night with Calgary’s win over Vancouver. Still, there’s enough positive EV for an investment of two units.
Tip: Philadelphia Flyers Tie No Bet @ +155
Units: 2/10
The match will start on 11/18/2023 at 1:00 PM EST.
The odds are from the time of publication of the article and are subject to change.
Esa Kostet
X: @konekostet
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