The new NHL season officially starts on Friday as the San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators meet up for a Global Series game in the Czech Republic.
Bookmaker Bovada has various specials available for the game, including having odds at -110 for both teams scoring 2-plus goals and the game having over 5.5 goals in total.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: October 6th, 8:00 A.M. (EST)
The Predators are massive favorites for the contest, but the Sharks will have an opportunity to feed off the energy of the O2 Arena with two Czech players – Radim Simek and Tomas Hertl – in the lineup.
Hertl, who is the first player born in the modern Czech Republic to appear in an NHL game, will be playing in his hometown and that should act as a great source of motivation for him. Can he carry his form from last year into the new season?
San Jose had another miserable campaign in 2021-22, but Hertl enjoyed a very nice run with 30 goals and 34 assists in 82 regular-season appearances. The 2020 All-Star was the team’s second-best scorer behind Timo Meier and he’s expected to be one of the protagonists again.
The Sharks have lost three of their ten best scorers from last year with Brent Burns being the biggest departee. He’s clearly been past his best in recent years, but Burns still managed to put up 54 points in 2021-22 and the rest of the blue line has to find a way to compensate for his numbers. New head coach David Quinn certainly has plenty to ponder.
The Predators lost forward Luke Kunin to San Jose in the summer, but they managed to replace him with the versatile Nino Niederreiter, and with Ryan McDonagh joining the backline, the Nashville lineup looks stronger than last year.
Nashville is on a proud run of eight consecutive playoff appearances, but the team has won just one series since the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals and they will want to get a good postseason seeding for 2023 with a solid regular season.
Goaltender Juuse Saros is set to play the biggest role in the Predators’ success again. He’s developed into one of the best goalies in the league and gives his team a chance to win on most nights. Finishing with a 38-25-3 record last season, the Finnish netminder was just one win short of leading the league in goalie wins. He has a nice 7-2-1 career record against the Sharks and should feel pretty good about his chances of kicking off the new campaign with a winning effort.
