Tuesday night was a solid one on the ice, as we split our best bets while going 2-1 on player props to turn a profit.

We'll look to keep things moving in the right direction with three more plays for Wednesday's four games.

Sabres (+100) @ Capitals (-120)

Leading up to the trade deadline, the Washington Capitals punted on the season by shipping away a handful of quality contributors in exchange for assets to better serve them in the future. Boy, has it showed.

Since deadline day, the Capitals controlled a putrid 38.54% of the expected goal share at five-on-five. That ranks dead last in the NHL.

Those numbers stem mostly from an inability to defend. With John Carlson and Nick Jensen injured - and Dmitry Orlov now playing for the Boston Bruins - Washington just doesn't have the horses defensively to limit shots and chances at anywhere close to the level it did previously.

For all their faults, the one thing the Buffalo Sabres can really do is put pressure on defenses with a dangerous run-and-gun offense.

Be it at five-on-five or across all game states, the Sabres rank third in goals per 60 minutes this season.

Led by Tage Thompson, Jeff Skinner, Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin, and Alex Tuch - who just returned to the lineup last time out - the Sabres can do severe damage offensively against teams that aren't up for the challenge.

They should significantly benefit from a date with an injury-plagued Capitals team that can't defend a lick.

Charlie Lindgren's presence between the pipes for Washington in a back-to-back situation will be a nice little bonus. He held up well for the first half of the season, but his play tailed off significantly since the calendar flipped.

Lindgren ranks 64th among 69 eligible netminders in save percentage (.877) in 2023. Suffice to say, he's going to have his hands full against a desperate Sabres team with a lethal offense.

Look for the Sabres to claim another much-needed two points.

Bet: Sabres (+100)

Tage Thompson over 3.5 shots (+110)

Thompson hasn't hit the over as regularly of late, but his shot volume remains consistently high. He's still the Sabres' primary shooter, leading the team by a healthy margin of 11 in shot attempts over the last 10 games.

It just so happens one of Thompson's best games of late came versus the Capitals. At the end of February, he amassed seven shots on goal and 11 attempts against a Washington team that was less thinned out than it is now.

With every point crucial, the Sabres will no doubt be giving Thompson a full workload in this spot. I expect he'll play 19-20 minutes Wednesday night, which should be more than enough for him to take advantage of such a strong matchup.

Noah Dobson over 2.5 shots (-125)

I generally want two things when backing Dobson: home ice and a good matchup. While we don't have the former, the latter more than makes up for it. The Anaheim Ducks are a dream opponent for shooters - especially on the backend.

They've allowed 11.51 shots per game to blue-liners this season, which is good for 32nd in the NHL. Their standing isn't much better over the last 10 games, as they slot 30th.

Dobson leads the New York Islanders in attempts (61) over the past 10, recording 12 more than the closest teammate in that span. He's shooting a lot.

With his average volume, we'd only need Dobson to hit the net on half of his attempts to get the job done. It's possible - and perhaps likely - we'll see an uptick in such a strong matchup.

Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @ToddCordell.

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Winnipeg Jets newcomer Nino Niederreiter took ownership after he and the rest of the top line were benched for a significant chunk of Tuesday's loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

"We didn't deserve to play," Niederreiter said, per Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press. "We simply weren't good enough."

He added: "We weren't engaged. We weren't doing the job we were supposed to do. We definitely deserved that. (Coach Rick Bowness) made that message pretty clear. We've got to be better. We've got to show up, especially this time of year, and yeah. It was definitely unacceptable."

Niederreiter began the game on the right side of the Jets' top attacking unit with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. The trio was shellacked five-on-five, failing to register a single shot attempt while being on for three goals against.

Carolina finished the game with a 12-0 Corsi advantage up against Niederreiter and Co. while out-chancing them 7-0, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Scheifele and Connor declined to speak after the 5-3 defeat.

The Jets acquired Niederreiter from the Nashville Predators prior to the trade deadline. He's been a terrific fit in Winnipeg so far, registering four goals - including one Tuesday after Winnipeg's lines were jumbled - in eight games.

Winnipeg has won only three of its past 10 contests, and is locked in a fight for playoff seeding in the Western Conference. After their latest loss, the Jets hold the second wild-card spot with 79 points and 14 games remaining.

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Punctuated by the lengthy saga that led to head coach Bruce Boudreau's firing, the Vancouver Canucks have been one of the league's most entertaining sideshows for large swaths of this season.

Veteran forward J.T. Miller said he believes his squad is leaving all the chaos behind.

"This wasn't too fun of a place to be in the beginning and mid-part of the year," he said Tuesday, per TSN's Farhan Lalji. "It was a bit of a shitshow … it really was. A lot of distraction. I think we've moved on, we understand who we're going to be moving forward. It's fun to come to the rink again."

He added, "I thought we've come together a lot as a team over the last couple of weeks. We've got to make sure we stay focused and try not to get off script here because everything we've been doing lately seems to be working for us."

The Canucks went 18-25-3 with Boudreau at the helm this campaign and won only three of Rick Tocchet's first nine games behind the bench after Vancouver made the personnel switch on Jan. 22.

However, the Canucks have gone 7-2-1 in their last 10 contests since Feb. 18, and their .750 point percentage in that span is tied for the fourth best in the league. Vancouver has also rattled off four straight wins, its longest streak of the season.

That's a far cry from where the Canucks were earlier in the campaign. They set a dubious mark to start the season by becoming the first team in NHL history to lose four consecutive games while conceding a multi-goal lead in each. Miller said after the second contest that he felt "irrelevant."

Despite the recent turnaround, a surprise playoff berth is virtually out of the question. The Canucks sit 18 points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference with a 28-32-5 record.

"We're playing well as a group," Miller said. "It's not about wins or losses at the end of the day right now, it's about enjoying the process of getting better as a group and having good habits and being accountable. We're starting to do that, and I think the results are showing as well."

Miller, who turned 30 on Tuesday, ranks third on the team with 36 assists and 60 points. His seven-year, $56-million extension will kick in next season.

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Carolina Hurricanes star Andrei Svechnikov will undergo season-ending surgery on his right ACL on Thursday, the team announced.

He'll miss the remainder of the regular season as well as the entirety of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Svechnikov suffered the ailment Saturday against the Vegas Golden Knights.

The 22-year-old power forward has tallied 23 goals, 32 assists, 205 shots, and 140 hits in 64 games this campaign.

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Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong defended the trade that sent Jakob Chychrun to the Ottawa Senators earlier in March despite heavy scrutiny over Arizona's return.

Chychrun had been on the trade block since January 2022, but Armstrong argued that the defenseman's injury history and poor play last season made him difficult to move.

"I was reading an article on how we buffooned it. The big saga, and how we blew this. But people skim that, they don't really understand that Jakob was injured for eight months," Armstrong said on the Cam and Strick Podcast.

Chychrun was sidelined with a lower-body injury at the 2022 trade deadline and missed the final 24 games of the campaign. He then missed the opening 16 contests of the 2022-23 season with a wrist issue.

Armstrong also argued that Chychrun's subpar performance in 2021-22 affected the trade.

"It's hard to trade a player when he's coming off a season he was minus-20. He was terrible," Armstrong said. "And then you throw his injury history from before, and then you throw his injury history now, and he's out for eight months."

Armstrong said one club made a push to land Chychrun at the 2022 draft, but "Jakob didn't want to go there." He added that the return wasn't as good as the one the team received from Ottawa.

Chychrun's contract, which carries a $4.6-million cap hit through 2024-25, doesn't contain no-trade protection until a 10-team no-trade list kicks in next season. However, the interested team became hesitant to acquire Chychrun upon learning he wasn't interested in joining it, according to Armstrong.

"We could've crushed it, and we would've got two late first-rounders, and we would've had to take money back. Up from $3.1 million to $5.1 million back," he said. "Why would we do that for two late firsts?"

Armstrong ultimately dealt Chychrun to the Senators for a top-five protected 2023 first-round pick, a 2024 conditional second-round pick (originally from the Washington Capitals) that becomes a top-10 protected first-round pick if Ottawa makes the 2023 Eastern Conference Final, and a 2026 second-rounder.

The Coyotes architect argued that getting a first-rounder likely in the 11-15 range - and potentially as high as sixth overall - plus two second-rounders, is more valuable than two late firsts.

Arizona possesses over $15 million in cap space - the second-most in the league. However, Armstrong said he wants to maintain flexibility to either sign free agents this offseason or take on more bad contracts in exchange for assets, as the Coyotes have often done since he was hired in September 2020.

Chychrun, 24, recorded 28 points in 36 games with the Coyotes this season. He has two goals and two assists in six contests with the Senators.

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