NHL Opening Day: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Chicago Blackhawks Prediction

A Revenge Game on Day One

How can two teams that missed the playoffs be part of a revenge narrative? Well what If I told you that because the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins at the end of the season the Penguins missed the playoffs for the first time since Crosby’s rookie season in 2006-2007. Guess who remembers this? Everyone in Pittsburgh, and especially Sidney Crosby.

Because of this narrative I’m all over two bets for what should be a very entertaining game. Crosby to get 2+ points for +135 and Pittsburgh Penguins PL -1.5 (+105). Both found on Bovada.

Crosby Running Up Points

There’s so much to love about Crosby in this game. He will be in front of his home crowd, staring down the rookie who has already been crowned as “the next Crosby” while playing against the team who ended his playoff streak.

Outside of this juicy narrative, Crosby had multipoint games in just about 1/3 of all games the last season. Not bad for the plus money odds, but this goes deeper. Chicago allowed the 4th most goals against last season, and the 3rd most shots against. They sold off most of their valuable pieces at the trade deadline but managed to keep Petr Mrazek between the pipes who was dreadful. Mrazek had a 3.66 goals against average last season, and a sub .900 save percentage. That means he gives up a lot of goals.

A pissed off Crosby shouldn’t have a hard time getting on the scoresheet multiple times.

The All Mighty Puckline

Puckline props can be a little scary. You are asking for the team to win by two goals, which can often get spoiled by a late goal with the opposing teams goalie pulled. However, I look up and down this Blackhawks roster and I’m not flinched by this play.

Yes, the Blackhawks added Bedard. Bedard has the best odd to win rookie of the year and should be a generational player in the league. I’ve seen bold predictions of him scoring 80+ points. But this is his first game, ever. Could he put up a goal and 4 shots? Sure, but I don’t think this will be enough to keep the Blackhawks in the game when you look at the rest of the roster.

#Blackhawks projected Opening Night lineup:
Hall-Bedard-Donato
T. Johnson-Reichel-Raddysh
Katchouk-Guttman-Athanasiou
Perry-Dickinson-Foligno

Vlasic-Jones
Korchinski-Murphy
Tinordi-Kaiser

Mrazek
Söderblom

Extras: Entwistle, R. Johnson, Zaitsev

— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) October 10, 2023

There are some interesting pieces on the Blackhawks roster. The addition of Taylor Hall should help Bedard produce. Tyler Johnson is a very good two-way forward and there are young players like Korchinski and Reichel who could turn some heads. However, when career AHL players like Tinordi and Katchouk are on the roster you have to wonder how many close games the Blackhawks will have this season. There are very few quality veterans to help prop up all of the young roster players.

Things Could Get Ugly

I believe this inexperience will make it very difficult for the Blackhawks to keep up with a very good Penguins team. A motivated Penguins team. A Penguins team who just added a 100 point scoring defenseman and have every reason in the world to absolutely smash the Blackhawks tonight.

Stacking Crosby, Kris Letang, Malkin, Erik Karlsson, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Rielly Smith, and Rickard Rakell against this Blackhawks roster just doesn’t seem fair.

So I’m all about a huge game from one of the best players of all time, Sidney Crosby and a huge hometown performance by the rest of his Penguins. Give me Crosby 2+ points for +135 and the Penguins PL -1.5 at +105.

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