NHL daily picks: Not much doing on a busy night

One of the side effects of the Colorado-Nashville-Ottawa three-way trade that sent Matt Duchene to the Senators and Kyle Turris to Nashville is that the trade market will need to react and recalibrate. The Canadiens, Rangers and Oilers have all been rumored to be actively looking to shake things up in the early going, but now they'll have to take a step back and not be made a fool compared to Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic, who played his cards right by getting a terrific haul for Duchene.

Last night's action: We went with four dogs last night and we weren't far off from a sweep. We got wins from Detroit and Boston but a shootout loss by Vegas and an overtime loss by Arizona kept us at 2-2 but in the green for the night. It's hard not think about what could have been if a bounce or two went our way, but more than anything it's encouraging to know that our edges were on point.

Today's slate:

The Edmonton Oilers continue to struggle for offense, and on Tuesday night, they will take on the in-form New York Islanders to begin a four-game road trip. With their low PDO, high Corsi and positive expected goals differential, the Oilers seem a prime candidate for some positive regression, but it may not come because their forwards are just not that good outside of Connor McDavid. The Islanders are a little bit undervalued here, but for the sake of transparency please note the author of this column (who regularly suggests bets against the Isles) is an Islander fan.

The Hurricanes remain a possession-driving force, but they haven't turned their volume into tangible results yet. They don't have a player with more than nine points and have only one, Jeff Skinner, with more than five goals. The Panthers have been mediocre to start the year, but they've returned some players, including Roberto Luongo, to the lineup after some injuries. I've got this one close to 55/45 in favor of Carolina, which means there's value with the visiting Panthers at that number.

For a breakdown of the Sabres-Capitals game, Stuckey has you covered here.

Picks: Islanders -127, Panthers +129

Season to date: 35-40, -0.14u

[Photo: Robert Mayer, USA Today]

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