It’s Friday Night. Which means I’ve been in the lab cooking up my parlay of the week. Because at FastMoneyLabs ($FML), that’s what we do.
With only 1 NHL game tonight, I decided to dial up my creativity and go with a little cross-sport action. Here’s where I landed:
The Avs had their ticket to the Conference Finals all but punched on Wednesday night until a historic meltdown let it slip away. Not to oversimplify this — but I don’t see that happening again.
The Blues have home-ice advantage tonight, sure — but in this matchup, game location hasn’t mattered. Colorado won both games played in St. Louis this series by final scores of 6-3 and 5-2. Those results were eerily similar to last year’s playoffs, when the Avs dominated both games played in St. Louis by final scores of 5-1 and 5-2.
Including regular season, the Avalanche have now won 7 of their last 9 games played on Blues home ice. This tells me the Avalanche’s performance in Games 3 & 4 of this series was not a fluke.
If you watched Game 5, you probably agree that Colorado superstar Nathan MacKinnon is pissed off right now. He wore his heart on his sleeve trying to close out the series at home. But in the end, his teammates let him down.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no one in this league is scarier than a pissed off Nathan MacKinnon. It’s a little risky for a parlay. But for +200 odds, it’s a risk I’m willing to take because otherwise — if a pissed off Nate MacKinnon scores and wins and we didn’t bet it, guess what? We’ll be pissed off, too. And who wants that? Not me.
For Leg 2, we’re heading to Cali and hitting the baseball diamond.
Toronto starter Alek Manoah is coming off 3 straight starts with 3, 4 and 4 Ks (most recently). Yet his Strikeout Prop today is listed at over/under 5.5, with the price for a bet on the Over juiced down to -160. Very interesting. Or maybe not?
In the 5 starts before that, he whiffed 7, 6, 5, 7 and 7, which helps explain today’s line.
Looking at pricing, -160 juice for a bet on the Over suggests sharps pounced at the opening line and expect Manoah to bounce back nicely from a K perspective tonight.
That line of thinking makes sense considering tonight’s opponent, the Los Angelas Angels (LAA), have the 5th highest K rate vs. Right-Handed Pitchers (RHP) in MLB at 24.7%, which rises to 25.7% when we isolate the last 14 days.
In 1 career matchup vs. LAA, Manoah posted a career-best 11 strikeouts in just 6.2 innings pitched. The Blue Jays went on to win that game decisively by a final score of 10-2. It wasn’t too long ago either (August 2021) and was played at Angel Stadium — the location of the game tonight.
Despite the low recent strikeout totals, Manoah’s rolling this year and is yet to allow more than 2 earned runs in a start. When he takes the mound, the Blue Jays are 5-3 this year.
Looking at the moneyline market, this game opened as a pick ‘em before the market drifted towards Toronto a slight moneyline favorite.
The market movement on both Manoah’s K prop and the Moneyline imply it’s not stupid to back Manoah’s 6+ K & Win performance double at plus money odds tonight, and in fact, it might be smart! So despite the late start time for east coasters, we’re rolling with it.
I got +668 odds for the parlay at FanDuel Sportsbook and risked 0.3 units to win 2U on the parlay. I also risked 0.5 units on each leg as single bets in hopes of lowering the risk of a heartbreak scenario (which could still happen, so please bet responsibly)!
Sticking with the NHL for this edition of Moneyline Tuesday as there are only two NBA lines currently less than -200. Insane. Sick League. On the ice we're going with the Panthers,...
