Episode 114: Phillies-Braves Game 2 & Another NHL Season-Opener

Dan Karpuc: What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Wednesday, September 30th edition of Trender Trap. I'm Dan Karpuck here as always for Trend Center. Today we have an MLB wildcard game two. We have an NHL season opener, and we have a look ahead to a weekend college football game that I really like. Let's start off with the Phillies at the Braves. Game two: Atlanta leads 1-0 per Trend Center over the last six seasons. Wildcard games with totals of eight or less have gone 32, 11, and 4 to the under. That's 74.42% for 19.9 units, 38.49% ROI. So is this a trend to tail with under seven runs, or a trap to fade with over seven runs? For me, this is actually gonna be a trap. I'm gonna go with the over seven runs here. Christopher Sanchez gets the start for Philadelphia. In what is a must-win game, and the Braves have had some success against him. Active Atlanta hitters are batting 297 against Sanchez across 138 at bats, and he's really struggled down the stretch here, posting a 5.12 ERA across five September starts. He also had a 3.69 ERA on the road this season and allowed 12 more hits than innings pitched away from Philadelphia. That's not exactly the profile I'm looking for. When being asked to trust a pitcher in a high-leverage postseason start. On the other side, Tyler Maley is a perfectly capable pitcher. He's grades out as being average, but his chase and whiff numbers are below average in the 23rd and 25th percentile. And that's a dangerous combination against this Phillies lineup with Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, and company on the left side of the plate. If Miley Maley can't generate swings and misses, Philadelphia Should have some opportunities to put runs on the board and punish him. The historical trend is obviously screaming under, but I think the individual pitching matchup gives us a reason to go the other way. I'm gonna say that the undertrend is a trap, and I'm gonna take over seven runs in this one. Heading on to the penguins at the Flyers and NHL action, the trend center trend here is pretty strong over the last 19 years. Home favorites of minus two thirty-five or shorter and season openers against divisional opponents with a total below six and a half are 38-9 on the money line when they won more regular season games than their opponent the previous regular season. That's an 80.8985, I should say, percent win rate, with 23.47 units of profit and a 31.02% ROI. So is this a trend to tail with the Flyers minus 140 or a trap to fade? With the Penguins plus 115. For me, I'm gonna tail the trend and take Philadelphia on the money line here. The Flyers already showed that they can handle Pittsburgh last season, beating the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games in the first round of last year's playoffs. And Philadelphia brings back largely the same roster with Rick Tr Tocket entering his second season behind the bench. One thing the Flyers need to improve on is their power play. They can't do much worse than they did. Last season in this regard, they finished 32nd in the NHL last season in the power play percentage. They've spent this offseason emphasizing better puck movement and getting more pucks to the net from different angles. That's important because Philadelphia was a strong team overall last season, finishing 43, 27, and 12. The biggest key could be getting on the scoreboard first more often. League-wide teams that scored first last year won 66%, 66.6% of their games. Last year, and that number jumped to 74.2 percent among playoff teams. There's also a significant injury on the Pittsburgh side. Brian Rust, who scored 29 goals last season, is out for the opener after suffering an upper body injury in the preseason finale. Meanwhile, Philadelphia is expected to have Dan Vladar in net. He had a breakout first season with the Flyers, winning 29 games while posting a 2.42 goals against average. And followed that up with a 2.18 goals against average and 922 save percentage in the playoffs. So you've got a historical trend, the home ice, the recent head-to-head, playoff success, and a key Pittsburgh goal scorer already ruled out. I'm gonna say that this is a trend to tail. Give me the Flyers minus 140. And finally, looking forward to the weekend on Saturday, it's Notre Dame 4 0 at North Carolina 2 1 in some college football action. The trend center trend says that since 2022, underdogs getting between 19.5 and 23 points coming off a no cover in games with a total between 46.5 and 64 are 75 and 31 against the spread, a 70.75% cover rate, producing 40.9 units of profit, and a 34.75% ROI. So is this a trend to tail with North Carolina plus 21 and a half? Or a trap to fade with Notre Dame minus 21 and a half. It's easy to look at Notre Dame and want to lay the points. The Irish are 4-0, ranked number three in the country, and they're just allowing 8.2 points per game. However, I'm gonna say that this is a trend to tail and back North Carolina plus 21 and a half. North of course, Notre Dame's also coming over that off of that dominant 39. Point win over Purdue, but 21 and a half points is a massive number. And I think that that's where this game gets interesting. North Carolina has quietly also played some really good defense so far. The Tar Heels are allowing just 13.7 points per game. They went to Dublin and BTCU 15 to 10, and they actually held Clemson 14 to 3 before eventually losing down the stretch of that game. Now they're coming off a bye, which is very important when you think back to his NFL days, especially. Giving Bill Belichick and his staff a bye week to prepare usually meant good things for them. And I'm expecting similar things here. Do I expect them to beat Notre Dame? Absolutely not. However, they have two weeks to prepare for this attack that Notre Dame is going to put forth here. We're not asking North Carolina to win. We're just asking them to stay within three touchdowns on their home field. With the size of this number. Arrested North Carolina team, Bill Belichick coming off a bye and a defense that has already shown it could keep games low scoring. I'm willing to take the points here with the tar heels at plus 21 and a half. Let me know what you guys are willing to tail. And if if I got something completely wrong, let me know that too. As always, head to trend center now that we have NHL, N MLB playoffs, college football, NFL. All going on right now, and right around the corner, we have the NBA in college basketball coming up, guys. This is a great time to subscribe and get as much value as you can. That we have all of these things going on in our premium product right now. Once you subscribe, you get access to every sport, everything going on, and full access to everything. So don't wait, head to the Trend Center app right now and get that premium subscription. I'm Dan Karpuck here for Trend Center and I'll be back right here tomorrow with another episode of Trender Trap.