New York Islanders vs Carolina Hurricanes Game 1 Prediction – 4/20/2024

On April 20, 2024, the New York Islanders face off against the Carolina Hurricanes at 5:00 pm ET in Game 1 of their first round playoff series in the Eastern Conference. DraftKings Sportsbook initially favors the Hurricanes as -230 favorites, with the Islanders as underdogs at +190. Early betting activity sees 69% of moneyline bets on the Islanders and 31% on the Hurricanes. The opening total of 5.5 goals has 42% of bets on the under and 58% on the over. Stay tuned to see how this exciting matchup unfolds.

Going into Islanders vs Hurricanes Game 1, these two teams have split their regular season series 2-2. Interestingly enough, the road team has won all four games between these two teams in the regular season, which indicates that the Islanders certainly have a fighting chance in this game despite being sizable underdogs in this playoff opener. Instead of taking the Islanders on the moneyline, though, we are going to play it safe and take them to cover the puckline as underdogs.

This season, the Islanders have played the Hurricanes four times. In addition to winning two of those contests outright, they stayed within a goal in one of their two losses to Carolina as well. That means three times that they would have covered the puckline as an underdog in four meetings with the Canes, which is good enough for us to play here despite the road woes of the Islanders for the majority of this season.

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