East Second Round - Game 1 - Featured
TNT / truTV

Canadiens @ Sabres

Wednesday, 7:00 PM ET | KeyBank Center, Buffalo, NY

The Atlantic Division 1-vs-2 second-round series opens at KeyBank Center Wednesday night with the Buffalo Sabres hosting the Montreal Canadiens for Game 1 of a matchup that brings together two franchises who broke through their first-round droughts in opposite ways. Buffalo opens as a -130 home favorite on the moneyline with Montreal at +108, and the goals total sits at 5.5 with the over priced at -130 and the under at +106. The Sabres passed their first playoff test in 15 years, defeating the Boston Bruins in their opening round to advance to the second round for the first time since 2007.

Buffalo's structural identity is built around Rasmus Dahlin's franchise-defenseman profile and the Tage Thompson primary-scoring axis that has anchored the Sabres' offensive shape across the regular season. Lindy Ruff's coaching template integrates the Dahlin-Owen Power top-pair geometry with the Thompson-Alex Tuch-Jason Zucker forward grouping that produces the kind of two-way structural variance that built Buffalo into the Atlantic Division's 1-seed. The Sabres' power play has been a structural concern across the run-in - Buffalo scored only one power-play goal across a 35-day stretch leading into the playoffs, the kind of high-leverage shape that the Canadiens' penalty-kill structure can exploit through Wednesday's special-teams sequences. The home moneyline at -130 reflects the Buffalo home-ice premium and the regular-season seeding gap more than it reflects the structural read on the matchup itself.

Montreal's structural counter runs through Nick Suzuki's center-anchored creator profile and the Lane Hutson defensive-zone exit geometry that has built the Canadiens into one of the most efficient transition teams in the East. Suzuki's primary-scoring identity, Cole Caufield's finisher profile on the right wing, and Juraj Slafkovsky's net-front presence form the structural top-line shape that Martin St-Louis has built across the season. Hutson's Calder-favorite rookie campaign gave Montreal the kind of mobile-defenseman piece that supports the high-press transition shape, and the +108 road moneyline encodes the structural variance that has carried the Canadiens deep into the playoffs after a regular-season profile that few projection systems pegged for a second-round run. Puck drop is 7 PM ET on TNT, truTV, and HBO Max.

West Second Round - Game 2
TNT / truTV

Ducks @ Golden Knights

Wednesday, 9:30 PM ET | T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, NV

The Vegas Golden Knights return home to T-Mobile Arena Wednesday night for Game 2 of the Western Conference second-round series against the Anaheim Ducks, carrying a 1-0 series lead after a 3-1 Game 1 win that head coach Bruce Cassidy described as a result the Ducks deserved more out of than the scoreline showed. Vegas opens as a -162 home favorite on the moneyline with Anaheim at +136, and the total sits at 6 goals. Ivan Barbashev's go-ahead goal at 15:02 of the third period was the structural difference in Game 1, the kind of late-period goal that the Vegas roster has produced across the playoffs.

The Golden Knights' structural identity is built around Mark Stone's two-way primary-creator profile and the Jack Eichel scoring-anchor template that Cassidy has integrated since the November 2025 trade for Mitch Marner. Marner's first full playoff run with Vegas has produced the kind of high-leverage offensive shape that pairs with Eichel and Stone to give the Knights three primary-creator geometries on the same roster. Adin Hill's goaltending profile - a save percentage above .920 across the postseason - is the structural piece that anchors the defensive shape behind the Alex Pietrangelo-Shea Theodore top-pair geometry. The Vegas home record across the regular season was 27-13-1, and T-Mobile Arena's playoff atmosphere is the kind of structural variance that the -162 home moneyline reflects.

Anaheim's structural counter runs through Leo Carlsson's primary-creator profile and the Mason McTavish-Trevor Zegras supporting cast that head coach Greg Cronin has integrated across the second half of the regular season. The Ducks' power play has been the structural variable that built their first-round upset of Edmonton, and the +136 road moneyline encodes the kind of plus-money value spot that the Anaheim shape has produced across the playoffs. The icing wave-off late in Game 1 was the structural sequence the Ducks disagreed with most, and the bounce-back response Wednesday will define whether Anaheim can split the road games and steal home-ice advantage back to Honda Center for Games 3 and 4. Puck drop is 9:30 PM ET on TNT, truTV, and HBO Max.