On Black Friday, the Toronto Maple Leafs are back in action and facing a familiar opponent that has started to give them trouble in the Washington Capitals. The Buds are coming off their first win in some time Wednesday after edging out the Columbus Blue Jackets for a 2-1 overtime win. The victory helped Toronto improve out of their recent hole with seven losses in their prior eight outings.
The Capitals have won two straight over the Leafs but prior to that, the Maple Leafs have long dominated this matchup with nine wins over their prior ten matchups from 2022 up until November of 2024. The Leafs will try to reverse the momentum and get back to their winning ways after getting back key reinforcements, as Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, and Nicolas Roy all returned to the lineup in the Leafs win on Wednesday.
For anyone new to the Pad Stack challenge, the mission is straightforward: turn $10 into something bigger through disciplined, research-backed wagers. Our hottest streak of the season climbed to $411.47 before a late empty-netter from the Florida Panthers spoiled our Vancouver spread and snapped the run. Now it’s time to reset, refocus, and start a new climb with a confident play in tonight’s marquee matchup that we believe can set the tone and get us rolling again.
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Picks: Over 4.5 Goals & Leafs +1.5 (-114)
The Buds are on stop three of their six-game road trip, where they have really struggled this season with a 2–6–0 record. This is surprising for this group considering their past success on the road. Since the 2023–24 season, Toronto has posted the fifth-best road record in the league at 51–30–9, and their offense has ranked second in that span with 3.42 goals per game, although their backend has been questionable. This season on the road, the Leafs rank fourth-worst in goals against per game at 3.61 and even during their strong road stretch over the last few seasons, they continued to have issues preventing goals with a 3.11 goals-against per road game average.
This would suggest we are headed for a high-scoring game, although the Leafs have recently been trending in the opposite direction. They have seen six or fewer goals in four of their last five games after a stretch of 13 straight contests with seven or more. History still leans toward offense in this matchup, with seven or more goals in nine of the last 14 meetings.
Because of that, we do want to lean on the offense, but we are not interested in the current price on the 6.5 total. Getting it at +100 makes the play feel like a trap, so we will take the safer route with the over 4.5, which has hit in 18 of the last 19 Leafs-Caps matchups. We will also back the Leafs to continue climbing out of their early-season hole and keep this game competitive.
A $10 wager on this same-game parlay would return $8.80, giving us a total of $18.80 to work with heading into the weekend.
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