Basketball is back, hockey has a full evening waiting, and the remote is about to earn its keep. That does not mean the betting slip needs to be busy.
Our first stop is Columbus, where Toronto arrives after playing last night. Our late stop is Vegas, where the Golden Knights have been scoring in bunches. In between, the NBA’s opening night gives us a good reason to watch before getting carried away.
Odds and team news checked October 20, 2026, at 12:00 p.m. EDT. Prices are DraftKings quotes carried by ESPN, not guaranteed offers or Ontario-specific prices. All start times are Eastern. Vegas is a conditional lean, not a confirmed bet.
Three games, three different decisions
| Game | Quoted market | Our take |
|---|---|---|
| Toronto at Columbus 7 p.m. | Columbus moneyline -162 | Pass; -145 buying limit |
| Philadelphia at New York 7 p.m. | Knicks -4.5 (-110) | Watch, no opening-night bet |
| Tampa Bay at Vegas 10:30 p.m. | Vegas moneyline -115 | Conditional lean; -120 limit |
Prices: ESPN’s NHL odds and NBA odds. This is a dated preview; prices can move.
Leafs–Blue Jackets: the rest advantage comes with a bill
Toronto finally got a win Monday, beating San Jose 3–1. The reward is a trip to Columbus and another game straight away. The Blue Jackets last played Sunday. That is a real scheduling difference, even if tired teams sometimes win and rested teams sometimes look flat. The clubs’ Toronto and Columbus schedules tell that part of the story.
The goalie matchup makes the home side interesting, too. RotoWire has Anthony Stolarz and Jet Greaves confirmed. Greaves has a .907 save percentage in five appearances; Stolarz is at .875 in three, according to the NHL matchup statistics. Those are small samples, but they give us more to work with than “Toronto must be tired.”
There are holes in both lineups. RotoWire lists John Tavares and Chris Tanev on Toronto’s injured reserve, with Ivan Provorov and Dante Fabbro on Columbus’ injured reserve. Missing players do not all push a game in the same direction: an absent forward can hurt scoring while an absent defender can make life harder for his own goalie.
Here is the catch: Columbus is only 3–4–0 and has scored 18 goals through seven games, per the NHL standings. We like the rest setup. We do not like paying -162 for it.
Our take: pass on Columbus at -162. We would only revisit the moneyline at -145 or better with Greaves still facing Stolarz. That is a buying limit, not a claim that a better price will appear. At -162, the break-even win rate is about 61.8%. The schedule alone does not prove Columbus wins that often.
Columbus -1.5 pays +160, but asking this offense to win by two is a different argument. Toronto +1.5 costs -192. The total is 6.5, over +100 and under -120. We are leaving those alone. Matthews and Nylander can wreck a tidy rest-based theory, and a sharp night from Stolarz would quickly shrink the apparent goalie advantage.
Sixers–Knicks: enjoy the opener without buying the hype
Philadelphia visits New York at 7 p.m. Opening night makes every new lineup feel like an answer. We would rather see how the minutes and possessions actually shake out.
The ESPN matchup page lists Adem Bona, Dean Wade and Anfernee Simons as day-to-day for Philadelphia. That leaves some rotation questions even before the season has its first real sample. New York is -4.5 at -110, with a -180 moneyline; the total is 232.5, over -105 and under -115.
Our take: watch, no pregame bet. We do not have a strong enough view of this matchup to turn the season’s arrival into a spread pick. A hot shooting quarter can make either side’s case look brilliant. The useful takeaway tonight may be who gets the ball and who stays on the floor, rather than a ticket we felt obliged to buy.
Lightning–Golden Knights: the late game gets our first lean
Vegas has won its last three games, scoring 17 goals along the way. Tampa Bay is 6–2–0, so this is hardly a soft visitor. The Vegas and Tampa Bay schedules show that both teams last played Saturday. Nobody gets a back-to-back excuse here.
The Golden Knights’ 42 goals through ten games explain the appeal of backing them at home. But Tampa Bay has allowed only 21 through eight, according to the NHL standings. Taking Vegas does not require pretending the Lightning cannot defend.
RotoWire projects Carter Hart against Dennis Hildeby; neither is confirmed. Hart has a .911 save percentage in six appearances, while Hildeby is at .920 in two, per the NHL matchup page. Hildeby’s start is encouraging, but two appearances cannot settle how tonight goes. RotoWire also lists Vegas defenseman Parker Wotherspoon out and Alex Pietrangelo on long-term injured reserve.
Our take: Vegas moneyline at -115 is the conditional lean, with -120 the ceiling, if Hart faces Hildeby. We are waiting for those goalie assignments. A different pairing means we pass on this angle. The case is home ice and Vegas’ recent scoring, not a claim that we have measured a hidden edge. At -115, a cash bet needs about 53.5% wins to break even.
We prefer that to Vegas -1.5 at +220. The larger payout needs a two-goal win, and Tampa can keep this close even if Vegas is the better team on the night. Tampa’s moneyline is -105; its +1.5 costs -270. The 6.5 total offers over +105 and under -125. We are not adding a total just because Vegas has been scoring.
The obvious way this loses: Hildeby stays hot, Tampa slows the game down, or Vegas’ missing defenders leave too much work for Hart. Three strong offensive games are a reason to look, not a promise of a fourth.
Keep the plan smaller than the TV schedule
Vegas is our first conditional look. Columbus needs to get cheaper. Sixers–Knicks is a viewing appointment. There are no unconditional bets in this article, and we are not tying the three games together in a parlay.
The hockey quotes here are full-game markets. Under DraftKings’ hockey rules, they include overtime unless the market says otherwise; a shootout adds one goal to the winning team for score-market settlement. Regulation-only or 60-minute markets are different bets. The terms for the market and location govern.
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