Maple Leafs vs Blue Jackets Best Pick, Prediction and Odds

No bet on the Maple Leafs at +136. The market makes Columbus a 59.3% winner, we make it 57.3%, and a 2-point gap is well short of the 5 a bet needs.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are -162 and the Toronto Maple Leafs +136 at DraftKings. With the margin taken out, that is 59.3% for Columbus and 40.7% for Toronto. Our number gives Toronto 42.7%. Same favourite, close to the same size.

How 57.3% is reached

Our home win chance is the average of the home team’s 2025-26 win rate in its own arena and the visitor’s 2025-26 loss rate on the road. Wins in overtime or a shootout count as wins. Games at a neutral site are in neither half, and neither team had one.

The Blue Jackets went 20-13-8 at Nationwide Arena, a 48.8% home win rate over 41 games. The Maple Leafs went 14-21-6 on the road and lost 27 of 41, a 65.9% road loss rate. Average the two and Columbus is 57.3%, Toronto 42.7%.

The margin is what a book builds into both prices so the pair comes to more than 100%. Here -162 and +136 come to 104.2%. Without it, the Blue Jackets are 59.3% and the Maple Leafs 40.7%.

Every figure in our number is from 2025-26: 41 home games for Columbus and 41 road games for Toronto. This season is not in it. The Blue Jackets are 3-4-0, 3-2-0 at home, and lost 2-1 in Minnesota on Sunday. The Maple Leafs are 3-4-2 and host San Jose on Monday night, so this is the second of back-to-back games for them; that result was not in when this page was written.

Columbus at home, Toronto on the road

The Blue Jackets at home scored 3.29 a game and allowed 3.07, a surplus of 0.22. The Maple Leafs on the road scored 2.88 and allowed 3.76, a deficit of 0.88. Toronto’s road half is what makes Columbus the favourite in our number, with a home record that was only a little better than .500.

The halves the method does not read: Columbus on the road went 20-17-4, also a 48.8% win rate, scoring 2.88 and allowing 3.10. Toronto at home went 18-15-8, 43.9%, scoring 3.29 and allowing 3.54.

Over the full season these two finished 14 points apart. The Blue Jackets went 40-30-12 with 92 points and scored exactly as many goals as they allowed. The Maple Leafs went 32-36-14 with 78 points and were outscored by 46. Neither made the playoffs.

Toronto lived in close games: 14-4-14 in one-goal games, and 9 wins in the 23 that went past regulation. Columbus went 18-13-12 in one-goal games and won 12 of its 24 past 60 minutes.

Columbus won two of the three meetings in 2025-26. Two were in Columbus and are in our number: a 6-3 Blue Jackets win on 29 October and a 2-1 Maple Leafs win in overtime on 26 November. The 3-2 Columbus overtime win in Toronto on 20 November is in neither half.

Pick: No bet on the Maple Leafs +136

Pass on the moneyline. The gap is 2.0 points toward Toronto, against a threshold of 5.

The line read Blue Jackets -162 and Maple Leafs +136 on 19 October 2026 at 22:14 UTC, DraftKings via ESPN. It opened at -148 and +124, so the move has been toward Columbus.

What changes it

A longer Toronto price. Against Columbus at -162, the Maple Leafs would need to be +167 or longer to clear the bar.

For Columbus to become the bet, the market would have to drop the Blue Jackets to 52.3% or less, from 59.3% now.

The other unknown is the lineups. ESPN’s injury list, read on 19 October 2026 at 22:15 UTC, has William Nylander day-to-day with an illness, and John Tavares, Dakota Joshua, Miles Wood and Chris Tanev on injured reserve for Toronto. Columbus lists no one. No goalie is on either list. Sergei Bobrovsky has played six of Toronto’s nine games and Anthony Stolarz three; Jet Greaves has played five for Columbus and Cam Talbot three. On the second night of a back-to-back, Toronto’s goalie is worth checking before you bet.

The total and the puck line

The total is 6.5, over +100 and under -120. The Blue Jackets’ games went over 6.5 in 37 of 82, the Maple Leafs’ in 46 of 82. Columbus’s home games averaged 6.36 goals and Toronto’s road games 6.64.

Those over rates, 45.1% and 56.1%, average 50.6%. With the margin out, the over at +100 is priced at 47.8% and the under at 52.2%. Our number sits less than 3 points toward the over. Pass on the total.

Columbus is -1.5 at +160 and Toronto +1.5 at -192, which is 36.9% and 63.1% once the margin is removed. The Blue Jackets won by two goals or more in 22 of 82 games, and the Maple Leafs lost by two or more in 32 of 82. Averaged, Blue Jackets -1.5 lands 32.9% of the time against 36.9% priced, less than 4 points toward Maple Leafs +1.5. Pass on the puck line too.

Maple Leafs at Blue Jackets, Tuesday 20 October, 7:00 PM ET, Nationwide Arena. Prices: DraftKings via ESPN, read 19 October 2026, 22:14 UTC. Results: ESPN, 2025-26 regular season; 2026-27 games and goalie appearances from ESPN’s team schedules and game page, read 19 October 2026. Injury list: ESPN, read 19 October 2026, 22:15 UTC.