Surprisingly, Seattle wasn't the luckiest team on the ice Tuesday. They slightly lost the expected-goal battle in an overtime winner, but one team covered a puckline in regulation getting slaughtered in it.
We're coming back on the puckline against them -- just like the loser of that one is to win Game 2 outright.
Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. Header links are to numberFire's betting model for each game. All NHL betting odds and totals come from FanDuel Sportsbook.
Florida Panthers at Toronto Maple Leafs
Maple Leafs -1.5 (+125)
I wasn't surprised that Florida won Game 1, but I was when we got the data on how they did it.
Toronto absolutely crushed the Panthers between the creases. Expected goals favored the Leafs by a tally of 4.46 to 2.27, which is the largest single-game gap of the playoffs thus far. It was the result of a continuing trend for the Maple Leafs that I don't expect to stick forever.
Ilya Samsonov posted 21.24 goals saved above expectation (GSAx) in the regular season, the ninth-best mark in the NHL. That towered over Florida's Sergei Bobrovsky (2.92 GSAx) in a larger sample. So far, though, Bobrovsky (2.87 GSAx) has crushed Samsonov (-1.48) in the playoffs.
The Leafs' netminder has hit a lull at the least-opportune time, but, frankly, Toronto skated circles around Florida on Tuesday. Expect a better effort from Samsonov tonight -- and a win if that pattern continues.