Top NHL Prop Bets for Friday: Erik Karlsson Over/Under 2.5 Shots on Goal?

Editor's note: Aaron Dell is in the net for the Sharks on Friday night, not Martin Jones. This piece will be updated with the updated prop and odds for Dell when they become available.

There are only four games on Friday’s slate, but we still have plenty of opportunities to look for exploitable prop bets by leveraging our NHL Models and Trends tool at FantasyLabs, as well as the Bet Labs database.

Here are two player props I’m eyeing for San Jose Sharks-Carolina Hurricanes, with the puck drop at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Sharks D Erik Karlsson

The pick: Under 2.5 shots on goal (+110)

We talked about the Sharks defensemen at length on Friday's episode of Inside the Lab, and our proprietary shot-prediction metric has Karlsson pegged for only 2.0 shots on goal, which is well below his 2.67 average (92nd-percentile) over the past month.

With the San Jose defenseman fresh off a zero-shot game, it's reasonable to double down on your Karlsson short against a Hurricanes team that has allowed the fewest Corsi (42.86) over the past month than any team on the slate as wells as the second-fewest shots in the league this season.

Sharks G Martin Jones

The pick: Over 31.5 saves (-110)

I'm usually all over the under for Sharks goaltenders, but Friday's matchup against the Hurricanes is a unique circumstance.

San Jose has allowed the third-fewest shots in the league — and the Sharks are on the road — but Carolina has far and away the most shots for per game (41.8) this season and the highest Corsi for expectation on the slate.

Our proprietary save-prediction metric has Jones projected for the most saves on Friday’s slate (34.9), which is exactly the type of outlier in which we can gain some value on an over prop at -110 in a high-volume matchup.