The Calgary Flames will look to build on their 2-0 shutout win over the Nashville Predators as they host the New York Islanders Tuesday night.

The Islanders are currently playing without five full-time NHLers including Mathew Barzal and Adam Pelech, but have remained competitive with a 4-4-2 record in the last ten games.

I’ll detail the relevant game notes, as well as outline my favourite betting angle below.

The Islanders have been betting underdogs in seven of their eight games in the time that Barzal and Adam Pelech have been sidelined. They have greatly overachieved oddsmakers expectations in posting a 4-2-2 record in that span, and have posted a respectable 50.0% expected goal share.

Rookies Maxim Tsyplakov and Isiah George have both excelled in heightened roles, and are doing a great job of helping to cover the absences from the lineup. Veterans like Kyle Palmieri and Jean-Gabriel Pageau have also elevated their level and led the team to respectable offensive results.

Coach Patrick Roy’s side has played a relatively sound game defensively, and is benefitting from strong play from goaltenders Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov as expected.

With Barzal sidelined there is still a clear lack of game-breaking offensive talent, and the Islanders offensive upside is still a clear concern. They done a good job of insulating their elite goaltending tandem with solid play though, and have beaten some high powered offensive sides of late.

Varlamov has been confirmed as the Islanders starter in this matchup. He has played to a .892 save % and 2.86 GAA overall this season, but holds a .938 save % over his last three starts. Varlamov was excellent last year in posting a +9.1 GSAx.

With American Thanksgiving just over a week away, the Flames are still holding down a Wildcard playoff spot. In the salary cap era over 75% of teams holding a playoff spot at that point have managed to get in. Calgary is currently priced at +230 to make the playoffs, which implies a 30.3% chance of getting in.

That tells us oddsmakers are still not sold on the Flames overall process. The most obvious reason that the Flames have outperformed expectations has been the play of their goaltending tandem of Dan Vladar and Dustin Wolf, as outside of more favorable Flames observers they widely rated as a bottom five duo entering the season.

So far they have combined for a .912 save %, which is the fifth highest mark in the league. They also hold an excellent +7.6 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) rating.

Over the last ten games the Flames hold an xGF% of 45.97 and have allowed 61.83 chances against per 60.

Anthony Mantha is the only player on the IR, and based on yesterday’s practice they will keep the same lineup we saw Friday versus Nashville.

Dustin Wolf is expected to get the start in goal. He has played to a .921 save % and +6.0 GSAx rating in nine appearances this season.

While the Islanders current lineup looks pretty suspect, they have been playing a strong team game and continue to overachieve oddsmakers expectations as a result. They hold solid underlying numbers in their recent matchups, and will likely to continue getting high quality play in goal.

There doesn’t look to be much value fading New York as a slight underdog in this matchup.

The one look that does interest me in backing Noah Dobson to record over 2.5 shots on goal. He has stayed under 2.5 shots in four straight matchups which helps contribute to his +115 price tag, which is a significantly better price than we have seen the last two seasons.

Dobson has gone over 2.5 shots on goal in nine of 18 games played this season though, which suggests in any matchup +128 is still a great number. He is averaging 14.3 attempts per 60 while averaging 25:00 of time on ice a night, and will continue to play huge minutes given the Isles’ injury situation.

The Flames provide a better than average matchup for Dobson to pour shots on target, and I also like that this game should feature fairly close score-lines throughout.