NHL Picks: The Anaheim Ducks host the New York Islanders in the late game on Wednesday in the NHL. Both teams are off to hot starts this season as the Islanders won six of their first nine games while the Ducks won eight of their first ten. It is a matchup of the Islanders offense against the Ducks defense and goaltending. The game is one of three on the Wednesday NHL schedule. Let’s look at all three games and NHL picks.
New York Islanders at Anaheim Ducks
The Islanders haven’t been that good in recent seasons but they look to have turned the corner this season. They are scoring a lot of goals led by John Tavares and Kyle Okposo. The team was 2nd in the league at just under four goals per game. The defense hasn’t been great but the goaltending has been better with Jan Halak the number one guy in goal. On the other side, the Ducks have been winning with defense and goaltending. Both of their goalies, John Gibson and Frederik Andersen have been excellent this season. The Ducks were allowing under two goals per game through their first ten games and getting enough scoring to win most of their contests.
This is the first game back after a four-game road trip for the Ducks and sometimes those games are really difficult for the home team as players have to deal with family, friends, etc. What helps them in this case is that the Islanders are playing their third game on a five-game road trip and that the Isles are in the first half of a back-to-back.
The Anaheim Ducks have won six of the last ten in this series with the last three going over the total. They have also won the last four in Anaheim with four of the last five going over. Even though the Ducks have played really well defensively this season this could be a high scoring game on Wednesday night.
NHL Picks
We’ll look for the Islanders and Ducks to go over the total on Wednesday night.
More NHL Picks
The two other games for Wednesday have Montreal at Buffalo and Detroit at the Rangers. The Canadiens are going to be road favorites against a Sabres team that has really struggled but this could be a really good spot to take the home underdog. In the other game the Red Wings have had all kinds of trouble winning in New York in recent years so the Rangers are the play in that contest.
