Welcome back to another NHL Predictions. Each day our writers here at Last Word on Hockey look at the games and give in-depth analysis. Our team breaks down the key matchups, storylines, and stats, then makes predictions based on how they might play out. For this edition, we will look at the New York Islanders taking on Utah Hockey Club. Don’t forget to check out more NHL Predictions, as our writers continue this series throughout the 2024-25 season.
NHL Predictions
New York Islanders vs Utah Hockey Club
Time: 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)
The Islanders Story
The Islanders come into this game on a two-game winning streak, beating two good teams on the road. One was against the Boston Bruins, the most recent was a dominate 4-0 win against the Vegas Golden Knights. The offence has come to life in these games scoring four or more goals in both. The recent production has come after line changes before the Boston game from coach Patrick Roy putting Brock Nelson on the top line. Nelson responded by snapping his 17-game goal drought a game later against Vegas. Anders Lee continued has strong play scoring in his 800th career game. He is the tenth player in Islanders history to reach that mark but is the first to score in the milestone game. As a team however, they still rank 26th in goals with 2.68 per game.
For the Islanders defensively, they pitched their second shutout of the season against the Golden Knights. That effort moved them up to 18th in the league in goals against with 3.10 per game. Ilya Sorokin deserves most of the credit however, he was a brick wall in the Vegas game. He stopped all 30 shots he faced en route to his second shutout of the season. It was the 20th of his career, the second fastest goalie in history to accomplish that. After going through a rough stretch, he has been more like himself in recent efforts. The win moved his record to 13-13-4 with a .902 save percentage and 2.83 goals-against average. He will yet again man the crease for the Islanders as Semyon Varlamov continues to work back from injury.
The Utah Story
This game will be the second of a back-to-back for Utah. They come into this one fresh off a 2-1 win against the San Jose Sharks. The win snapped a brief two-game losing streak. Utah hasn’t been in good form recently, as they are 3-7-0 in their last ten. Their struggles come from a lack of offence as they rank 23rd in goals with 116 on the season. In eight of their last ten games, they have scored two goals or less. It won’t get any easier for them as they just lost their leading goal scorer in Dylan Guenther indefinitely to a lower-body injury. He has 16 goals on the season and is a big loss for them going forward. Team points leader Clayton Keller with 41 in 40 games will have to shoulder more of the load offensively.
Defensively Utah is much better. They have given up the 12th fewest goals on the season with 121. They have only given up 77 high-danger chances that ranks 13th in the league. Their penalty kill is strong as well with an 80.4% kill rate, 14th in the league. Utah has gotten decent play from their goaltenders. Starter Karel Vejmelka has had a solid season. He picked up the win last night moving his record to 9-11-3 with a .916 save percentage and a 2.38 goals-against average. Since he started last night, they will likely turn to backup Connor Ingram. Ingram was just recalled from an AHL conditioning stint while he recovered from an injury, he hasn’t played since November 18th. Before his injury he was having a rough season. He is 6-4-3 with an .871 save percentage and 3.61 goals-against average.
NHL Predictions Isles at Utah
Looking at this matchup on paper, with the stats baked in. Utah has slight advantages in offence, defence, special teams, while also holding a better record. However, the Islanders have a big advantage in net and are rested while Utah is playing a back-to-back. Furthermore, the Islanders have been playing well in their last few games and just beat arguably the best team in the league in Vegas. These factors should add up to the Islanders extending their win streak to three games.
Prediction: Islanders win 3-2
Prop Bets
According to top betting sites, the Islanders are slight underdogs. We like their money line at plus odds, you can get it at +105. The over/under is 5.5. The last time these two teams met it was a high scoring; track meet kind of game. However, both these teams have struggled for most of the season to score. With the injury to Utah’s top scorer and Sorokin coming off his best performance of the season, we feel the under is the play at +110. As far as any time goal scorers. For the Islanders, take Mathew Barzal at +260. He has a four-game point streak going, all assists though so we think he will break through and end his seven-game goalless streak. For Utah take Clayton Keller at +175. It was highlighted before that he will need to step up with the injury to Dylan Guenther, we think he will do so and score one tonight.
Main Photo Credit: Rob Gray – Imagn Images
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The post NHL Predictions January 11th New York Islanders vs Utah Hockey Club appeared first on Last Word On Hockey.