Buffalo Sabres at Boston Bruins Betting Odds
Opening Moneyline: Sabres -135 / Bruins -155 O/U 5 goals
Time: 7 PM EST Monday March 29, 2010 on Versus
Tonight in an important Eastern Conference match up in Beantown the Boston Bruins host the Buffalo Sabres. This game is more important to the Bruins, as they Sabres have already wrapped up a post-season berth while Boston is in the 8th spot in the East, but only lead 9th place Atlanta by 2 points.
The Bruins are coming off a win and are 5-4-1 in their last 10 games and the Sabres are also coming off a win and are 6-3-1 in their last 10 games.
This season the Bruins are 16-15-6 at home and the Sabres are 18-13-4 on the road.
Boston has won 3 of their 4 games against Buffalo this season.
In their last games Buffalo looked solid in a 7-1 pasting of the Tampa bay Lightning and the Bruins looked equally impressive beating the Calgary Flames 5-0 also on Saturday.
Boston ranks dead last this season in scoring only averaging 2.42 goals per game, but in their last 3 games their offense has played well scoring 12 goals.
Boston's offense has their work cut out for them tonight facing Buffalo G Ryan Miller (37 wins 2.21 GAA save percentage 92.9%), who ranks 2nd in the league in GAA and 1st in save percentage. Miller has started 3 of the 4 games against Boston this season going 1-0-2 with a GAA of only 1.61. However, all of those starts were in Buffalo and in his last 3 games in Boston he is 1-2-0 with a GAA of 4.47 GAA.
Buffalo has a solid offense ranking 9th in the league in scoring (2.81 goals per game) and they have been on fire lately. In winning 5 of their last 7 games the Sabres have scored 25 goals and their power play has been stellar going 7/29 (24.1%).
When the season began reigning Vezina Trophy winner Tim Thomas was the Boston starter, but backup Tuukka Rask (18 wins 2.11 GAA save percentage 92.7%) is now the starter with his solid play this season. He leads the NHL in GAA and has a GAA of only 1.72 GAA in 4 games against Buffalo this season.
Thomas was in the Net in Boston's 5-0 win over Calgary in the last game and the starting G will be a game-time decision tonight.
Betting Trends
Boston is 3-12 in their last 15 home games, 2-9 in their last 11 games against teams with a winning record, and has an Under record of 3-1-1 in their last 5 games.
Buffalo is 5-1 in their last 6 games, 4-10 in their last 14 road games, and has an Over record of 5-2 in their last 7 games.
In the last 17 games between these 2 teams the Over/Under record is 4-11-2.
Our Selection : Take Over 5 goals.
Future Betting Odds
NHL Handicapping
Tampa Bay Lightning at Boston Bruins 5-17
The Boston Bruins need to play much better in game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bruins lost the opener 5-2 at home and can ill-afford to fall behind 2-0 to Lightning. Tampa Bay are on quite a roll, winning their last eight in a row in the playoffs. The oddsmaker at Bodog have the Bruins as a -145 favorite to even-up the series.