Canadiens vs Canucks Prediction, Picks & Odds for Tonight’s NHL Game – Covers.com

With the Habs coming off a long road trip and the Canucks still banged up, our NHL picks expect offense to be hard to come by.
NHL
The Montreal Canadiens concluded their road trip on a high Saturday night, picking up a victory over the powerhouse Avalanche in a low-scoring affair.
My Canucks vs. Canadiens predictions see another low-event contest in the cards, with both sides emphasizing structure and puck management. Let’s break things down further with my NHL picks for January 6.
My Canadiens pick
Under 6.5 (-140 at BET99)
My Canadiens analysis
The Montreal Canadiens have quietly found their footing defensively. They’ve been an above-average team at limiting shots, scoring chances, and goals at 5-on-5 over the last 10 games.
Their improved defensive play at full strength has carried over into penalty-killing situations. Montreal sits 12th in expected goals against and third in shot suppression while undermanned during that time. Martin St. Louis has found a way to tighten the screws in the defensive zone.
I expect the Canadiens will be leaning into their improved defensive game against the Vancouver Canucks. Montreal just completed an exhausting six-game road trip in which they traveled through Ohio, Florida, Vegas, Chicago, and finished things off playing at altitude against Colorado.
With this being the last game until Friday, the Canadiens will be looking to rely on structure and slow things down in order to get through to a much-needed break. The Canucks are a nice matchup for the Canadiens and their hopes of making that happen. For one, Vancouver is a slow, methodical team that relies more on their defense than offense.
They rank 31st in 5-on-5 pace and are playing very low-event hockey, ranking 28th in shot generation and fourth in shot prevention. Not much offense is being created at either end of the rink. Part of that is due to Rick Tocchet and his preference to play a disciplined, structured game with limited mistakes. Part of that is simply personnel.
The Canucks continue to be without Elias Pettersson up front as well as Filip Hronek on defense. That’s arguably their most talented forward and one of their only defensemen who can make plays on both sides of the rink.
They don’t want to find themselves in track meet games, and the same can be said of the Canadiens in this spot.

Under 6.5

Nick Suzuki Over 1.5 shots

Brock Boeser Under 2.5 shots
The Canucks have done a good job limiting shots of late. The one position they’ve given up volume to is center. Nick Suzuki has generated multiple shots in 64% of his games this season and 68% when playing at home. This after picking up at least two shots in 71% of home games a season ago.
It’s also worth noting Suzuki has enjoyed success against the Canucks in the past, recording multiple shots in four straight head-to-head meetings.
Brock Boeser has not put his excellent shot to use much this year. He’s averaging just 1.9 shots on target and has cleared 2.5 shots in 29% of his games. It’s been worse for him on the road, where he’s recorded 3+ shots at a 25% clip. With the Canadiens in fine defensive form, this is not a great spot for Boeser to buck that trend.
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Odds courtesy of BET99.
Nick Suzuki has recorded multiple shots in 14 of his last 20 home games. Find more NHL betting trends for Canadiens vs. Canucks.

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Todd Cordell is a data-driven betting analyst. He uses numbers to help identify value across a wide variety of sports, with NHL being his specialty. Shot props, in particular, have proven to be a very fruitful market. Todd has served as a betting analyst in the public sphere for many years, most recently with theScore covering the NHL and MLB.
When not writing about sports betting, Todd stays busy analyzing the New Jersey Devils with a fine-tooth comb for InfernalAccess, his Devils-centric blog. Todd attended Sheridan College and graduated in 2014 with a diploma in print journalism.
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