NHL Best Betting Picks Today: Rangers vs. Sharks Bets

Until recently, the NHL standings acted a bit like the Peloton in the Tour de France. Just a big clump of humanity bunched together, especially in the East. 

But that has changed over the last month. A few teams have pulled away up front and we’ve also see a few fail to keep pace with the pack. That latter group absolutely includes the Rangers and is the basis for both of my NHL Picks today.

Record: 17–29
Units: –11.21

Rangers vs. Sharks

Sharks ML (-130 Fanatics)
Over 6.5 Goals (-125 BetMGM)

The doors have officially come off the Rangers season. Since January 2nd they’ve lost star goalie Igor Shesterkin, their best player in D Adam Fox and any ability to prevent goals. They’ve gone 1-6-1 while getting outscored 24-42, for a whopping 5 goals allowed per game.

Jonathan Quick looked fantastic as a once-a-week-or-so backup, but he’s unfortunately just not suited to play virtually every game at this stage of his legendary HOF career. With Shesterkin down he had an unplayably bad 80% Save% and -12.25 GSAA in under five full games of actual ice time. Unfortunately, not at least starting essentially every game is not an option right now.

Oh, and also the Rangers have announced they are in full sell mode. All items are priced to go. For the here and now, everyone is still here — though you have to question whether they start to reduce the ice time of Artemi Panarin to name one obvious example. He is a pending free agent who will definitely have a new home by the time the trade deadline rolls around, and perhaps will have one by the “soft” deadline of February. That’s when an Olympic transaction freeze kicks in.

He leads the team in scoring as he has every year he’s been in the Big Apple, going 19-37-56 in 50 games. Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad are two other stars potentially on the block, and in their cases they are headed to Milan — so it might really behoove the team to be careful with them.

Regardless, it’s pretty clear the overall message of waving the white flag has not resulted in inspired play.

On the flip side, the Sharks are surprisingly right on the cusp of a playoff position. They did not expect to compete this year, but Macklin Celebrini has officially arrived as an absolute superstar at the tender age of 19 and carried the squad. He’s gone 24-48-72 and ranks fourth in the league in points. No one else has more than 34 points, but that lack of a second big scoring option may soon change as they just acquired Kiefer Sherwood from the Canucks, and he’s notched 17 goals this season.

San Jose has alternated wins over the last six, but they come in off a loss and thus are due.

I’m going to roll with two plays on this one. I believe the Sharks are underpriced as moneyline favorites vs. a squad not exactly focused right now. And the Rangers simply can’t prevent goals, so I’m adding the OVER.