Tonight’s matchup between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning at Scotiabank Arena is a pick’em.
The pregame narrative: Toronto has gained points in seven of its last nine games and is now contending for a bunched Atlantic Division, which Tampa Bay currently leads. The Leafs are four points back of the Lightning, and swept last year’s season series 4-0.
Check out my Lightning vs. Maple Leafs SGP predictions on Dec. 8, featuring Easton Cowan and Brandon Hagel.
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Lightning vs. Maple Leafs predictions
Parlay: Hagel 1+ points | Cowan 1+ points | Under 9.5 goals (+310)
Hagel 1+ point (-205): Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper raised some eyebrows when he selected Hagel for last year’s Canadian 4-Nations team.
Cooper is also coaching the 2026 Olympic squad. If the lineup were finalized today, I have to believe Hagel is getting the call.
- The winger has 29 points, second only to Nikita Kucherov, and a team-leading 17 goals.
- Hagel is 6-2 against this line in his last eight games with 10 goals and four assists.
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The Maple Leafs have been one of the league’s worst defensive teams this year and aren’t doing much better lately, despite their hot streak.
Corsi is an advanced statistic provided by Natural Stat Trick, which measures shot attempt differential (chances), and Toronto is consistently toward the bottom of the board.
The Leafs rank 31st on the season (45.31%) and 29th in the last 10 games (44.80%).
Hagel should feast in a plus matchup.
Leafs SGP picks
Cowan to score 1+ points (+130): Cowan has been playing solid hockey lately, even if he doesn’t have the points to show for it.
The rookie leads all Maple Leafs in Corsi Rate (51.9%) and xG rate (57.69%). That means when Cowan is on the ice, Toronto generates more chances and more quality chances than the opponent.
That’ impressive, given how drastically Toronto is out-chanced as a whole. In fact, Cowan is the only forward on the team with a Corsi rate above 50.0%.
Cowan is pointless in three games this month, but had found the stat sheet in four of the five games before that.
The London Knights product has earned increased ice time and is skating with John Tavares and William Nylander, both of whom are -180 or longer to score a point.
Cowan also plays on the top power-play unit with those two and Auston Matthews. I think he’s worth a sniff at plus money.
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Under 9.5 goals (-1,430): This might seem like a throwaway leg, but it actually boosts our SGP’s value from +235 to +310 thanks to some negative correlation with the previous picks.
I think that’s well worth it, even with both teams starting backup netminders.
Andrei Vasilevskiy is listed as day-to-day after picking up an injury on Thursday. He didn’t play on Saturday, and it appears that Jonas Johansson is in line to start.
The Swede has a sub-.900 SV%, but the under on this total has still cashed in all nine of his starts.
That shows what kind of leeway we have. A 5-4 win for either team would still pay.
Toronto has gone under this mark in 24 straight games, and Tampa Bay has gone under this mark in 27 of its 28 games on the year.
Lightning vs. Maple Leafs SGP made at 9:05 a.m. ET on Dec. 8, 2025.
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Avery joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2022 before stepping into a full-time role soon after. He loves betting on and analyzing golf — mainly because it’s easier than actually playing — but is a fan of all sports, from the NFL to the UFC.