NHL PrizePicks Today: Top NHL Player Props & Picks for April 27-29 – Best Plays

For the latest NHL Odds, including NHL Futures and NHL player props, visit RotoWire's NHL Betting page. For up-to-date NHL player news and NHL Injury Report info, head to RotoWire's NHL Lineups page. You can find more picks at Bookies.com/picks.

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Note: Time on Ice projections and picks can change frequently throughout the day due to injuries and changes to line combinations, especially power-play lines. I encourage readers to check the comments section below for any last-minute updates prior to puck drop.

Not Sure How to Capitalize on TOI: Check out our PrizePicks Time On Ice 101

Not Sure How to Capitalize on TOI: Check out our PrizePicks Time On Ice 101

Stanley Cup Playoff Notes

Before we get to the picks, a few things to keep in mind during the playoffs:

Overtime will not count in the playoffs. This might be a shock to those who jumped into TOI this season. But for those who've been playing it for a few years, you're used to overtime being excluded. This seems like a big change, though it shouldn't affect that many plays -- or, at least, the wins and losses should balance out. I know I complain a lot about overtime, and you'd think it's been a negative for me, though it probably evened out overall. This doesn't change my strategy at all. If the matchups are tight, that probably means the star players have already gone over their numbers. 

Things can get weird in the playoffs. When a game starts to go the wrong way, you'll often see players attempting to "send a message." What that means for us is sometimes a player will get a game misconduct to kill any over possibility. It seems weird, as it rarely happens during the regular season, but the playoffs are different. If you have an over and your player is down a couple of goals later on, there's a chance you lose him to a misconduct. I've had it happen a few times, including an instance two years ago where I had Drew Doughty going over, and he was well ahead of pace, only to pick up a 10-minute penalty halfway through the third period. I'm not saying it's going to happen every night, though it'll likely come up at some point. Hopefully, our recommendations won't be involved. 

Teams won't always go all-in to get the win. It sounds counterintuitive, but coaches don't want to chase after a lost cause during a seven-game series. At some point, a coach must decide if it's worth going all-in to win. If he decides it's not worth it, then the star players aren't going back on the ice to save their legs and to avoid any shenanigans that happen at the end of playoff games. 

All the above are reasons to take the less option more frequently in the postseason until you realize that the stars are generally going to receive more ice time than normal from the first two periods -- and the third if the score is tight. It's a balancing act, and I'll do my best to figure out where these plays are going to land each night. 

Analyzing NHL Time on Ice PrizePicks Plays

Card Overview: This will be the final TOI article for this season as the options are getting thin as the first round series come to an end. With that in mind, I'm stretching this article over three nights, tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday. 

As with all the cards during the playoffs, this one looks okay, but not great. That's been a theme during the playoffs because things are just different in the playoffs, and playing time is not as reliable as it is during the regular season. That's what happens when coaches have to think about the entire series and not just the game at hand. As we get closer to elimination games, you might see some more reliable trends appear, but we're not quite there yet.  

While there won't be enough plays to put any more articles out this season, I'll still try to find a pick or two each day to play myself. Check out my X feed to see what I'll be playing over the next few weeks. Link above. 

BUILDING BLOCKS

Miro Heiskanen 26 vs. Minnesota Wild - Tuesday - 8:00 p.m. ET (MORE) 

For most of this series, I've been trying to pick either Heiskanen or Quinn Hughes to go over, depending on how I thought the game would play out, but for some reason, Hughes is not getting the minutes in the playoffs that he was getting in the regular season. Perhaps this has something to do with what I just mentioned in that coaches have to consider the whole series and therefore, don't want to put too much on any one player early in the series. That's Hughes; however, in Heiskanen's case, Dallas has really leaned on him this series, and it's about to lean even more as this is now a 3-game series. In addition, news dropped today that Nils Lundkvist will not be available for game 5. Lundkvist averages over 16 minutes of ice time per game, so that's going to open up some ice time for the top pair. Heiskanen didn't play much in game one of this series, but since then, he's been either above or hovering just around this number. This is the time in the series when coaches need to play their best guys and not worry about the future. A loss here would be tough to overcome, so I'm sure they'll play their top guys as much as they can handle. 

Evan Bouchard 25.75 vs. Anaheim Ducks  - Tuesday - 10:00 p.m. ET (LESS) 

I latched onto Bouchard's under at the exact right time prior to game 3 of this series. He's gone well under his number in the past two games, and while one of those was a lead script for the Oilers, one was a trail script, and he still didn't come close to hitting his number. There's something about this matchup that's not working for him, and the coaches have adjusted. Bouchard is clearly the best offensive defenseman that the Oilers have, but offense hasn't been the issue in this series; the defense has been the problem, and unless Edmonton gets a ton of power-play time early or gets behind multiple scores, I don't see Bouchard going over this number. This is a do-or-die game for the Oilers, so they might do some weird things, but as long as the game stays tight, I think they'll focus on stopping the Ducks, which means less ice time for Bouchard. 

Charlie McAvoy 26 at Buffalo Sabres - Tuesday - 7:30 p.m. ET (MORE) 

A tough loss for anyone who had the more option on McAvoy this past Sunday. McAvoy put in over nine minutes in the first period, but the Bruins were already down four goals. The Bruins were clearly going to give McAvoy all the minutes he could handle if the game were close, but it got away so early that there was no reason to push him. Tuesday is a new game, however, and I'm expecting the same game plan here. We don't need a trail script here, just a somewhat close game, which could be a problem considering it's an elimination game, but if we can keep this tight for just two periods, I think that will be enough to get McAvoy over the number. Boston doesn't have anyone else on the blue line; they need heavy minutes from McAvoy. Let's just hope this game doesn't get out of hand. 

SCRIPT/LINE/INJURY DEPENDENT

Mikhail Sergachev 24.5 vs. Vegas Golden Knights - Monday - 9:30 p.m. ET (MORE) 

Before I get into this pick, I should note that for some reason, PP had this game listed as 1 pm EST, and as of now, it's not available, but I have to assume that this game will be back up once they realize that no, this game is not being played at 11 am local time on a Monday. Anyhow, Sergachev has let me down a couple of times during the playoffs, but that's been entirely due to script. Utah has controlled this series from the start; even though the game the Mammoth lost, they were ahead for most of the night. At some point, Vegas has to turn this around, right? I don't need a road win here, just a simple lead will do, maybe for 15 minutes or so? Is that too much to ask? Sergachev has come close to hitting this over in every game this series, so we just need a trail script for part of this game. 

Lane Hutson 26.25 at Tampa Bay Lightning - Wednesday - 7:00 p.m. ET (MORE) 

Hutson's playing time has decreased with the return of Alexandre Carrier, but he's still coming in right around this number. In order for Hutson to get over this number, we'll need one of two things to happen. Actually, before we get to that, we need Noah Dobson out of the lineup, which we aren't sure of at this moment, but if he's back, then I'd probably avoid this play, but if he's out, then we have two avenues to victory. The first is a trail script, which we haven't seen much of in this series, as Montreal has played even or from the lead for most of the series. If the Canadiens get behind, Hutson's going over. The other scenario is for the Canadiens to simply stay out of the penalty box. With Carrier back, Huston is not on the PK, so any shorthanded time eats away at his minutes. Now that this is a 3-game series, we should also see more even-strength minutes from the top-2 defensive pairs, so there are plenty of ways for this to hit. 

Jackson LaCombe 26.5 at Edmonton Oilers - Tuesday - 10:00 p.m. ET (MORE) 

LaCombe wasn't an option on PP in the first two games of the series, but he's been in play the past two games, and he's been an easy over in both games. I thought at the beginning of the series that Anaheim would lean more on John Carlson because of his playoff experience, but it's been LaCombe who has received the most ice time, and the script hasn't really mattered.  The key for LaCombe in the past two games has been Anaheim's ability to stay out of the penalty box. LaCombe is not on the PK right now, so as long as we don't get a ton of penalties from the Ducks (like game 2), and this game stays within a couple of goals. We should be good here.