Connor McDavid was able to get the monkey off his back in a Game 5 loss, scoring a nice goal for his first of the series.
I think the league’s best player is going to double down and find the back of the net again with his season on the line.
Connor McDavid player prop picks
- Best bet
Anytime goalscorer
(+150) - SGP pick
Anytime goalscorer
Bouchard Over 0.5 assists
Oilers +1.5
(+350)
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.
Connor McDavid best bet
Connor McDavid anytime goalscorer (+150 at BET99)
There weren’t a lot of positives to come from Edmonton’s 5-2 loss on home ice in Game 5. One of the exceptions was that Connor McDavid finally found the back of the net. The dam is broken!
It’s hard to overstate the importance of that for the Edmonton Oilers. They simply don’t have the depth or goaltending to match the Florida Panthers. If they’re going to win, they need their superstars to be the difference. That means McDavid firing on all cylinders.
There’s reason to believe the goals will continue flowing for as long as the Oilers are still playing. Creating opportunities has not been an issue for McDavid.
He ranks second in the series in expected goals and scoring chances. He also leads all Oilers in rebounds created, routinely generating second and third opportunities in tight on Sergei Bobrovsky. He just hasn’t converted on them — until Game 5.
While the Panthers deserve credit for playing McDavid tough, they’ve still given up plenty of looks to the game’s best player. It’s simply not realistic to expect them to continually amount to nothing.
Now that McDavid has finally scored, the floodgates may now open. He’ll get every opportunity to make that the case in a do-or-die Game 6.
In last year’s playoffs, McDavid logged 24+ minutes in Game 5 and Game 7 against the Panthers with the Oilers’ season on the line. He only played 18 minutes in Game 6, but that’s because the Oilers blew the Panthers out of the rink, and it wasn’t necessary to run the captain into the ground.
If this game is remotely close, McDavid is not going to leave the ice. He’s also proven — even against the Panthers — that he can generate chances in bulk.
Connor McDavid same-game parlay
Connor McDavid anytime goalscorer
Evan Bouchard Over 0.5 assists
Oilers +1.5
McDavid has shared the ice more with Evan Bouchard than any other player during this year’s playoff run. It’s not even close.
Kris Knoblauch wants his star offensive defenseman on the ice with McDavid as much as possible to help get him the puck in transition and maximize his capabilities in the offensive zone. That’s not going to change.
Given that they also play together on the No. 1 power-play unit, the two players are more or less inseparable.
Lastly, I like the Oilers to keep the game within a goal. When the Panthers finally put them away last year, they did so in a tight 2-1 affair.
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