I don’t know much about Salt Lake City, but Friday will be one of the biggest sporting nights in the history of Utah’s capital as the Mammoth host the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 3 of their NHL Western Conference first-round series with it tied 1-1. The puck drops on the first-ever playoff hockey game in the city at 9:30 ET. If you’re interested in NHL betting, here’s my parlay for Vegas vs. Utah.
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Golden Knights vs. Mammoth same-game parlay (-130, DraftKings)
- Mammoth +1.5
- Alt Under 7.5
One of the highlights of these Stanley Cup playoffs so far was watching the Sabres rally for a 4-3 win over Boston last Sunday in Game 1 of their East series. That was Buffalo’s first time hosting a playoff game in 15 years, and the roof at KeyBank Center nearly blew off when the Sabres scored the late go-ahead goal.
So, yeah, I’ll be watching this one just to see how bananas the fans in Salt Lake City get with their first taste of playoff hockey. It’s the first time in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the franchise since 2020, when the team was the Arizona Coyotoes. The franchise moved to Utah ahead of the 2024-25 season.
Utah has the momentum in the series following a 3-2 upset win in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The Golden Knights had been unbeaten in regulation since the firing coach Bruce Cassidy, who was replaced with John Tortorella at the end of March. Tuesday’s game was a back-and-forth affair with Logan Cooley scoring the winner for the Mammoth at 14:00 of the third.
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Cooley turns 22 on May 4, and he became the youngest American player in NHL history to score in each of his first two career playoff games, besting the previous benchmark held by current Utah captain Clayton Keller (22 years, 6 days). The Utah second line of Cooley, Dylan Guenther and Kailer Yamamoto was the difference, and that group has only been together since March.
Guenther tallied his first NHL playoff goal, which give Utah a temporary 2-1 lead in the second. He finished the regular season with 19 go-ahead goals, which was the second most among all players behind in the NHL. Yamamoto, meanwhile, finished Game 2 with two helpers.
Cooley tonight can become the third player in NHL history to score in each of a franchise’s first three postseason contests, following Nick Harbaruk with Pittsburgh (1970) and Newsy Lalonde with Montreal (1918-19). Life was better when people were named Newsy Lalonde, come on! Cooley is +205 to find the net tonight.
That Game 1 victory was hardly a fluke as Utah outhit Vegas 39-33 and outshot the Knights 29-21, including a franchise-record 12 power-play shots in a single game. Yet the Mammoth went 0-for-4 with the man advantage, while Vegas was 1-for-4.
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The Mammoth’s top line of Nick Schmaltz, Clayton Keller and Lawson Crouse has not gotten going yet with a single point in the series — an assist by Crouse in Game 1. That line scored 28 goals at even strength in the regular season, which was tied for the 10th-most of any line in the league. Each of them has a minus-2 rating, so that Utah got a road split is encouraging for its series chances. I still like Vegas in seven.
As for tonight, it should be a madhouse at the Delta Center, which certainly hosted its share of memorable NBA playoff games. The average price for a lower-bowl seat for Game 3 is $481 and the average price for an upper-bowl seat is $217, per the Associated Press and tracking data from TickPick. The overall average price is $266, which is 213% higher than the $85 average for Utah’s regular-season games.
Utah was 22-16-3 at home during the season, and No. 1 netminder Karel Vejmelka was 21-12-2 in SLC with a 2.78 GAA and .896 SV. This will be the first NHL game that Vegas No. 1 Carter Hart has ever played in Salt Lake City. He didn’t see the Mammoth in the regular season and didn’t play in the NHL in the 2024-25 campaign.
Utah tries to become only the sixth team to overcome a deficit to win its first-ever playoff series. Seattle was the last in 2023. Active NHL franchises own an all-time record of 12-18-1 in their first-ever home game in the playoffs.
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This isn’t the best price for a parlay, but I think it’s a winner short of a Vegas empty-netter. We have been crushing Unders in these playoffs but since they aren’t giving me 6.5, I had to parlay and might as well just do 7.5 because Under that has been such a cash cow so far in the postseason. Check out other expert picks in the SportsLine daily newsletter.
