Thursday night features the Game 2's for all 4 series that opened things up on Tuesday night. It's safe to say it was quite an interesting start to the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs with each road team winning. Not only that, but they were also all upsets and were won by multiple goals. It was a perfect demonstration of how the NHL postseason can be so difficult to predict. Therefore, we've got you covered with NHL player props for tonight's action. We're targeting 2 skaters that faced off against one another in last year's Stanley Cup Final.
Along with our player props, be sure to check out all of our NHL picks for today's action.
Steven Stamkos over 0.5 assists (+110)
Let's get things started with the first game of the night. The Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs were the first series to be set for the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Leafs were listed as the clear favorites. That has since changed with the dominating performance of the Lightning. They smashed Toronto 7-3 on Tuesday night en route to their 4th straight Stanley Cup Final appearance. Goaltending has been what's held back the star-studded Leafs for several years, but they were finally stronger in that regard this year. However, the postseason is a different beast.
Allowing 7 goals was quite the surprise, but perhaps even more surprising was Stamkos not being a part of any of them. That may sound like bad news for this play, but we're not going to let 1 night dissuade us from backing a future Hall-of-Famer. Stamkos has elite goal-scorers in Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point to dish out helpers to, which he's proven to do consistently against the Leafs. In all 3 regular season games against Toronto this year, Stamkos recorded an assist. Better yet, he's had at least an assist in each of his last 6 games against the Leafs, and 9 of the last 10. With that type of track record and the dynamic talent around him, Stamkos is our featured skater of the night.'