Our NHL expert39s tip of the day There will be

Our NHL expert's tip of the day: There will be goals in the first third of the Wild-Oilers game

Today is my birthday, so let's hope that brings us some happiness!

Yesterday, the free choice I shared with you ended in defeat. The Panthers failed to pull off an upset in Carolina with a boring 1-0 loss. For the second year in a row, I don't regret the bet as Florida dominated in shots, 44-29.

The good news is that the top two National Hockey League (NHL) picks I featured on mjpicks.com were winners: a sub-6.5 goals total for the Islanders-Blues (four total goals scored) and more than 2.5 shots on goal for Nico Hischier, who fired six!

Today we have a few games to watch, but here's a case that I like: More than 1.5 goals were scored in the first third of the Wild-Oilers duel.

According to my mathematical scheme, this bet has a 60.6% chance of winning. In terms of odds, this means that the minimum acceptable value is 1.65 in decimal format.

At the time of writing, some bookmakers have odds between 1.65 and 1.72.

If you had bet more than 1.5 goals in the first period of each of Minnesota's last 11 games, you would have won 6-5. If you turn your attention to Edmonton's last eight games, you would have had a total of five wins and three losses.

Let's now limit ourselves to the last meetings between these two teams. In the last five matches, three times more than one goal was scored in the opening stages. It's not necessarily particularly convincing, but I trust that my mathematical model has given us a lot of profits over the last few years. You have to trust the numbers!

I am so grateful to be able to spend my birthday with my family in Barbados. I wish you all a great weekend!