With the first month of the NHL season winding down, a pair of early contenders have pushed their way to the top of the Eastern Conference without a single regulation loss, while a number of teams are in hot pursuit.

After Saturday, we should know more about who may win the Metropolitan and Atlantic Divisions as six viable playoff teams face each other for the first time this season.

It’s another opportunity to lean on home teams and fade teams with extended winning streaks.

Here are my best bets for Saturday’s NHL slate.

Carolina Hurricanes at Florida Panthers
Saturday, November 6 – 6 PM ET

The Carolina Hurricanes keep winning. Victories in nine straight games is no small feat, and after an off-season littered with skeptics questioning their decisions – this writer among them – the Hurricanes have been all too happy to stick it to the haters. I love Saturday’s opportunity to grab the Panthers at home to hand the Hurricanes their first defeat.

While this is a matchup of two Eastern Conference juggernauts, how this game stacks up from a strategy standpoint is fascinating. The Panthers want to move – fast. They will use the stretch pass to catch their opponent out of position. Want to leave the ice? Florida destroys opponents during sloppy line changes. Even time defending the cycle can immediately turn into a Panthers’ counterattack as no team in the NHL is more eager to fly the zone. By finding the trailer, the Panthers torch adversaries who have a sluggish transition defence.

Hockey has a less perceptible coaching edge than football, where brilliant tacticians like Bill Belichick are fawned over. But Carolina and its Jack Adams Award-winning coach Rod Brind’Amour are the exception. Carolina overachieves because of its puck support and retrieval ability. The Hurricanes’ defencemen can be aggressive because the forwards cover over the top and fill the middle.

As usual, the Hurricanes are excelling in the microstats. And they will try hard to stamp out the Panthers’ offensive creativity. The Hurricanes will lounge in the neutral zone and gird themselves for the Panthers to rush toward them headlong or make an ambitious pass that they can disrupt. The Hurricanes desire for their adversary to force plays gives them chances off the counterattack.

The Panthers’ recent series against a stingy Bruins defence may prove instructive. Like the Hurricanes, the Bruins are very hard to score against when they are set defensively, but Florida rattled Boston’s skaters into committing turnovers on their breakout and in transition. When the Bruins forced the Panthers to chip the puck deep by denying their entries, Florida adapted and retrieved in the corners. The Panthers are fast and they are deep at forward. As thrilling as their transition game is, they have the versatility to play a heavy game and power the puck to the net.

The Sergei Bobrovsky injury is concerning for those hopping on Florida. Bobrovsky has been awesome this season, and Spencer Knight’s numbers so far are mediocre. But 10 straight wins for Carolina? And this time on the road against one of the league’s best teams? I’ll take the Panthers.

Pick: Panthers -140

Boston Bruins at Toronto Maple Leafs
Saturday, November 6 – 7 PM ET

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ rollercoaster continues in earnest! After a 2-4-1 start to the season, Toronto has ripped off four straight wins, walloping the injury-riddled Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday and besting the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.

On Saturday, the Maple Leafs’ elite offence meets the Bruins’ fearsome defence. Toronto is first in expected goals per 60 minutes, and Boston is first in expected goals against per hour. A clash of strengths awaits!

I’m of two minds about the Maple Leafs’ victory over the Lightning on Thursday. On the positive side, all four of Toronto’s lines were able to generate scoring chances. For stretches of the game, the Maple Leafs were seeing their entries denied, but they still were able to destabilize the Lightning’s breakout and establish the cycle.

Furthermore, the Timothy Liljegren-Rasmus Sandin defensive pairing continues to impress, as the Maple Leafs earned more shot attempts and shots than the Lightning when those two were on the ice, a feat that was not achieved by the first or second pairing. Additionally, goaltender Jack Campbell was spectacular, posting a 2.14 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) and outplaying Andrei Vasilevskiy.

And yet, the Maple Leafs had fewer high-danger chances and lower expected goals than the Lightning in this game. Toronto’s gap control and puck management issues supplied Tampa Bay with excellent opportunities and kept Toronto in a defensive posture. To paraphrase TSN’s Ray Ferraro during the Leafs-Golden Knights broadcast, a problem with the Maple Leafs is that their forwards have one mode, and that’s scoring goals.

Ferraro was discussing it in the context of the Maple Leafs’ prior failure to close out a game when they had the lead, and part of that problem is evident in their flagging transition defence. Toronto’s mentality is to be the aggressor. They overload on the puck and sometimes leave the weak side open for the cross-ice pass. Even Campbell, their nominal No. 1 goaltender, loves to challenge the shooter, which leaves him vulnerable to a pass if his teammate doesn’t box out.

From this perspective, the Bruins will be an important test. Boston will want to grind Toronto down and get in on the forecheck, testing Toronto’s defencemen and forcing battles in front of the net. When the Bruins play keep away, it will be incumbent on the Leafs to stay focused and mark their men.

The Bruins are 4-0 at home and 1-3 on the road. Playoff teams mostly finish .500 or better away from their arena, so Boston is likely to be worse at home going forward and better on the road. Ultimately, I think Boston’s suffocating defence will make this a low-scoring affair while I have doubts about the Maple Leafs’ ability to stymie the Perfection Line for 60 minutes. As an underdog, even on the road, Boston offers too much value to ignore.

Pick: Bruins +115

Philadelphia Flyers at Washington Capitals
Saturday, November 6 – 7 PM ET

The Washington Capitals are a flawed team. Their defensive group can be exposed. The adequacy of their goaltending situation for a deep Stanley Cup run is suspect. A worthy opponent can toy with their man-on-man defence in their own zone and, if they manage the puck well, defang the Capitals’ potent counterattacks. But as far as Saturday goes, I just don’t think the Philadelphia Flyers are a team poised to identify and prey on those weaknesses.

The Philadelphia Flyers’ analytics are once again an eyesore, and it isn’t hard to see why. When Ryan Ellis was healthy, it was a reasonable assertion that Philadelphia had one strong defensive pair. But with Ellis injured, Ivan Provorov is left with Justin Braun, who is an unworthy replacement. Things are even more dire with the second and third defensive pairings.

This is alarming because Washington is only surpassed by Carolina and Florida in goals per game at 5-on-5. The Capitals are crafty in how they gin up offence. They can attack teams on the rush by having one of their speedy skaters delay and then attack underneath. At home, Washington will have agency to set the matchups.

One focus should be on the Evgeny Kuznetsov trio. Alexander Ovechkin is on a mind-boggling, goal-per-game pace and his line is quadrupling its opponents in goals this season and dominating in the microstats. I am dubious the Flyers have an answer.

The Capitals should control play at 5-on-5, so Philadelphia’s path for victory is with a spectacular goaltending performance or if Washington badly loses the special teams battle. Flyers’ goaltender Carter Hart was atrocious last year, but he has rebounded with an excellent start, submitting a 5.76 GSAx in seven games.

But Hart has also played the last three games, meaning there is a possibility that the Flyers start Martin Jones. Jones has looked good in two starts in Philadelphia, but his track record suggests he is a well-below-average goaltender. After dropping two games this week to Tampa Bay and Florida, I think the Capitals are poised to shred a questionable Flyers defence.

Pick: Capitals -150