Best NHL Bet Today: Expect Young Star to Fire Away

OddsJam betting expert @NorthSideCapper is back with a profitable NHL bet for Wednesday night’s action between Chicago and Boston.

Chicago Blackhawks vs. Boston Bruins Pick: Connor Bedard Over 3.5 Shots On Goal | +100 on TheScore

Wednesday, October 11 | 7:30 p.m. ET

The Connor Bedard show has officially begun in the NHL with the 18-year old sensation registering his first NHL point in the way of an assist on a Ryan Donato goal which cut the Penguins lead to 2-1 at the time. The Blackhawks eventually went on to beat the Penguins 4-2 for their first win of the 2023-24 campaign.

Simply put, there is next to no raw data on any team and/or player for this season and considering Bedard has no previous numbers for comparisons, it makes it that much more challenging. That being said, we do love a prop tonight even with the limited data available to us.

Using the OddsJam Positive Expected Value tool, we scanned the board looking specifically for Bedard props as we believe while the hype is real. The market does not really understand how good this guy is and we found exactly what we were looking for. We’re locking in Bedard’s shots on goal player prop tonight which sits at 3.5 at the time of writing.

There are some big discrepancies on the market but we managed to find the best price at TheScore which is being offered to us at +100. For comparison’s sake, other books such as PrizePicks and Underdog Fantasy both have this listed at -137 implied odds. You’d never want to take his prop there.

Again, we always stress how important it is to shop around for the best line; it’s what will determine a winning bettor from a losing one long term. Let’s dig into this a bit deeper.

As previously stated, there simply is not much data to look into. That said, we feel this number is way too low. Why? In his first career NHL game, Bedard registered 5 SOG against a very respectable and defensively responsible Penguins team who were playing their home opener; impressive to say the least.

Prior to that, Bedard had played in four pre-season games registering totals of 5,4,5 and 2 SOG albeit against what was likely players simply gearing up for the big night. Nonetheless, Bedard has shown capable early on he has an eye for goal and is not afraid to take his shots at goal against the big boys.

Another positive Bedard has going for him is that the Bruins come into the 2023-24 season significantly weaker overall, but especially through the middle as they watched their captain Patrice Bergeron call it quits and hang up his skates. Bergeron was one of the hardest working two-way centers in all of hockey and not having to go up against him will make any opposing center’s night that much easier. Again, the kid is a stud and has a bright future. We don’t see him shying away from goal tonight on a back-to-back now having officially gotten his feet wet in the NHL.