Previewing Thursday’s New York Rangers at New York Islanders sports betting odds and lines, with NHL matchup analysis and picks.
The New York Rangers (22-19-4) commute to the Island for a 7 p.m. ET puck drop against the New York Islanders (28-13-4) at Nassau Coliseum. We analyze the Rangers-Islanders sports betting odds and lines, while providing NHL betting tips and picks around this matchup.
Rangers at Islanders: Projected starting goalies
Alexandar Georgiev vs. Semyon Varlamov
Georgiev bounced back from back-to-back losses by defeating these very Islanders Monday by a 6-2 score. The win pushed him to 11-9-1 on the season with a .911 save percentage and 3.11 goals against average. Georgiev has stood on his head against division foes; he has a 4-1 record with .945 SV% and 2.01 GAA versus Metropolitan Division teams.
Varlamov, like the Islanders as a whole, has had a great regular season thus far, going 15-6-4 with a .919 SV% and 2.48 GAA. However, he was the starting netminder in the Islanders’ latest loss to the Rangers, giving up six goals on 35 shot attempts.
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Rangers at Islanders: Odds, picks and betting tips
Odds courtesy of BetMGM; access them at USA TODAY Sports for a full set of today’s betting odds. Odds last updated at 1 p.m. ET.
Prediction
Rangers 3, Islanders 1
Both teams have been mediocre recently—the Rangers are 5-5 and the Islanders 5-4-1 in each of their last 10 games. The Underdog is 11-5 in the last 16 Rangers-Islanders games. Also, Varlamov has worse splits against the Rangers compared to his norms—his 6-4-1 but his .900 SV% and 3.00 GAA are downgrades from his overall average.
Let’s BACK RANGERS +140 on the moneyline.
The Rangers are much better against the spread than the Islanders: The Rangers are 30-15 ATS overall, including 14-8 on the road, and the Islanders are 21-24 ATS overall with a 10-13 ATS record at home. The Islanders really underperform ATS as favorites, they have an 8-20 record on the 1.5-puck line. However, the regular puck lines are a no-go, in my opinion. Who wants to lay -200 for a Rangers -1.5 puck line?
BET (with a smaller wager) RANGERS (-1.5, +360) on the alternate line. We are making a bigger bet on the Rangers to win outright but because the +360 is so enticing, why not sprinkle a little cash on the Rangers getting an empty-net goal in the final minutes?
This game features a contrast in styles—the Rangers rank third in total goals per game and the Islanders rank 28th—but Rangers-Islanders games tend to go Under when the Islanders are the host team. The Under is 11-4 in the last 15 meetings with the Islanders at home. The Rangers average the most penalty minutes per game in the NHL but don’t expect the Islanders’ 20th ranked power-play unit to take advantage of that.
TAKE UNDER 5.5 (+125) for our third plus-money wager in this Rangers-Islanders contest.
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