Tip: Matt Tkachuk and his Florida with a good chance to pulverize the Blue Jackets

The Florida Panthers are visiting the Nationwide Arena and the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday at 7:00 PM ET.

Columbus Blue Jackets-Florida Panthers

Florida Panthers

Last year’s winner of Presidents’ Trophy, which is awarded to the team that scores the most points during the regular season, haven't had as successful regular season like last year as they are struggling to get a playoff spot. The Panthers are positioned as the fourth best team in the Atlantic Division, where Boston Bruins already has clinched the divisional win and where the Maple Leafs and Lightning looks to seize the other two playoff spots. This means that Florida needs to fight for one of the two Wild Card spots where they are mainly battling with New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins. Like last year, when Florida Panthers was the team that scored the most goals during the regular season, it is the offense that carries the team forward and Matthew Tkachuk, who Florida acquired in the summer in a trade with the Calgary Flames, has been a good fit for the team from Sunrise and is positioned as the fourth best point scorer in the league and has been noted for over one hundred points this season and has therefore reached the 100-point club alongside Connor McDavid, Leon Draisatl and Nikita Kucherov. It looked like this when the 25-year-old forward scored his hundredth point for the season:

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Besides Tkachuk, the Panthers have players that can produce both scoring chances and points, and Brandon Montour has been a productive player from his defensive position and has scored over sixty points, which in terms of points is by far his best season of his career. The defenseman from Ontario has been, and is, an important player for the team’s powerplay that are ranked as eleventh in the league. Like I said before are Panthers relying on their offense and they are the team that creates the most chances with thirty-seven shots on goal per game, and if we look to which teams that has scored the most goals so far during the regular season, the Panthers are ranked as fifth with 3,46 goals scored per game.

Columbus Blue Jackets

The Columbus Blue Jackets is having a terrible season and are placed in the bottom of the league with no chances to reach the playoffs. The team from Ohio has been forced to deal with multiple injuries on key players such as Zach Werenski and Jake Bean, and before the transfer window was closed, the Jackets traded the defensive defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and the goalkeeper Joonas Korpisalo to the Los Angeles Kings. In the beginning of this week, the Blue Jackets announced that their 31-year-old defenseman Erik Gudbranson is out for the reminder of the season due to a separated shoulder. This leaves Columbus in a difficult situation, especially on the defensive side where they have been one of the worst teams in the regular season. This season, it is just Anaheim Ducks that have conceded more goals per game and it is just Anaheim and Arizona Coyotes that are conceding more shots on goal per game than Columbus. Brad Larsens team have a terrible record in their last matches, and has conceded four goals or more in twelve of their last thirteen games.

Conclusion and prediction

The Columbus Blue Jackets is having a terrible season and are just waiting for the season to end. Their defense has been one of the worst in the NHL this season and Brad Larsen possesses one of the weakest defensive sides and have Zach Werenski, Jake Bean and Erik Gudbrandson on the injury list and traded Vladislav Gavrikov one month ago. Florida, for its part, is chasing a playoff spot and is one of the series' strongest teams when it comes to offensive capacity as they are the team that creates the most scoring chances and are one of the teams that score the most goals. Based on the conditions, I think it is likely that the Florida Panthers, with Matt Tkachuk in the lead, will score at least four goals during regular game time against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

My betting tip for this game is therefore:

Florida Panthers Over 3.5 Goals (regular game time) @ -167 (1.60) at Unibet