NHL Saturday Night: Most Public Sides vs. A Coin (Week 5)

It’s been a long week. The clocks moved back an hour last Sunday and the days have never felt shorter. You wake up and it’s dark outside.

The clocks moved back an hour last Sunday and the days have never felt shorter. You wake up and it’s dark outside. You drive home from work and it’s dark outside.

In a world filled with darkness it’s important to find sources of light, no matter the size.

Fortunately for all the hockey heads in Canada we have another Saturday filled with NHL action to provide a distraction from the profound darkness that consumes us all this time of year.

And fortunately for myself, we have the publics most popular plays for tonight’s slate which have been an automatic fade the first four weeks of the season.

If you’re new here, first of all I’m sorry, each week I take the public’s three most popular moneyline picks for Saturday night in the NHL and am putting them head-to-head with a coin.

I wasn’t sure where this public vs. coin experiment would take us, but as we enter the second weekend of November I have one giant takeaway: You all aren't very good at this.

But fear not, maybe the darker days and more time indoors will help. Maybe it will give you all more time to get in the lab and cook up some winners. For your sake I hope you do. Because we’re 12 games into this little experiment the coin grabbed an early lead and hasn't looked back.

But before we get to the flips, let’s take a look at some betting information from FanDuel and identify a few plus-money props to consider for tonight’s slate.

Make sure you scroll to the bottom of the article to see what the coin likes this week, along with a TikTok video of the coin flips and for a recap of all the picks to start the season.

MOST PUBLIC SIDE

MOST POPULAR NHL TEAMS

Away

Home

Popular side

New York Rangers

Detroit Red Wings

Rangers -210

Jonathan Quick will make his third start of the year for the New York Rangers as he looks to improve to 3-0 on the season. Quick is 20-6-2 with the Rangers since joining the team last season and is 16-14-1 in 31 games with a goals against average of 2.78 and a save percentage of .906 versus the Red Wings in his career.

New York is aiming to sweep the season season against Detroit after a 4-1 win at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 14 before taking a 5-2 victory at Little Caesars Arena three days later.

Meanwhile the 10-2 Carolina Hurricanes will look to keep the winning ways going against the 6-8 Colorado Avalanche.

Pyotr Kochetkov is expected to start for Carolina, he is 1-1 against the Avalanche in his career. In his lone start in Colorado, Kochetkov allowed six goals on 27 shots in a 6-4 loss.

Finally, the Florida Panthers look to extend their win-streak to seven as they host the Philadelphia Flyers.

Alternate captain Matthew Tkachuk will play the 600th game of his career tonight. He has 14 points in 15 career games against the Flyers.

PLAYER PROPS TO MONITOR

So far I have spotlighted 22 props in this portion of the article with a 11-11 record, which includes going 2-2 last week after identifying four plus-money props.

This week we’re running it back with another batch of plus-money props for Saturday night with a success rate of 70 per cent or higher to start the year.

PLAYER PROPS TO MONITOR

Player

Prop

2024 Success Rate

Sean Monahan O 2.5 Shots on Goal 75 per cent

Nathan MacKinnon O 0.5 Powerplay Points 71 per cent

Noah Dobson U 0.5 Points 71 per cent

Dylan Strome O 0.5 Assists 77 per cent

Canadian team anytime goal scorer Same Game Parlay of the week

Between a George Michael tribute show on Thursday and a trip to the theater on Saturday it's been a busy week for my mom.

Her and I have been like two ships passing in the night all week and never got the chance to sit down and put a parlay together.

Still, she found the time this afternoon to lock in "#13 on the Montreal Canadiens" via text message just before the show was about to begin.

While I never got an explanation I can only assume it has something to do with the fact the Habs are my uncle Nick's favourite team, they are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs and she likes the number 13.

So with Cole Caufield locked in, I