@FastMoneyLabs’ Sunday NHL Picks - 2/20

After a successful night on the ice on Tuesday, $FML is back with another set of picks for Sunday's slate - check them out below!

For today’s featured picks, I’m targeting the Panthers/Blackhawks matchup in Windy City.

Chicago is coming off a heartbreaking 1-0 loss in a shootout vs. Dallas. They didn’t win, but their goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury played outstanding, stopping all 29 shots faced (excluding shootout) to secure his 4th shutout of the season.

The visiting Panthers, meanwhile, arrive sizzling hot off back-to-back impressive road wins over the Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild. Can they keep it rolling today against a hot goaltender?

Assuming Marc-Andre Fleury will play for Chicago (he is the projected starter at time of writing), he could be in for a sobering afternoon. I say that because I found something super interesting about his performance splits in my research process.

Against bad and mediocre offenses, Fleury has been outstanding. In 24 starts, he’s held opponents to 3 goals or less 71% of the time.

His stats against Top-10 offenses are more revealing. Against teams in the Top-10 of league scoring, he’s allowed 4 or more goals 8 times in 13 tries (62%), as shown below:

The Florida Panthers are the best-of-the-best when it comes to scoring. They lead the league in scoring with an average of 4.04 goals per 60 minutes.At time of writing, their team total is sitting at o/u 3.5.

Through 49 games, Florida’s exceeded this number 29 times, good for a 59% hit rate. That, combined with the fact Marc-Andre Fleury allowed 4+ goals in 62% of his starts vs. Top-10 offenses, led me to see good value in a bet on the ‘Over’ for Florida’s team total today.

I found a related angle I like for a bet in the Player Prop market.

On Friday, I trusted Florida superstar Aleksander Barkov to record a point for me as part of a parlay. Long story short – the Panthers proceeded to score 6 goals but sadly, Barkov did not join the party.

Successful betting requires short-term memory, which is why I’m going right back to Barkov.

The last 5 times Barkov failed to record a point, he proceeded to record 2+ in the next game, as shown below:

He has yet to play Chicago this year, but Barkov recorded 2+ points in 4 of their last 5 meetings (all in the 2020/21 season). That, combined with his tendency to bounce back after scoreless games have me loving his 2+ points prop today at +184 odds.