Detroit Red Wings at St Louis Blues Betting Odds
Opening Moneyline: Detroit -130 / St. Louis +110 O/U 5.5 goals
Time: 8 PM EST Tuesday February 9, 2010
Tonight in a match up of a couple of struggling teams the St. Louis Blues host the Detroit Red Wings. Both teams are on the outside looking in, as the Red Wings are in the 9th position in the Western Conference while the Blues are in the 13th position. However, each is not far out of the playoff race with Detroit being only 2 points back of the 8th position and the Blues are 7 points back.
This season the Blues are 9-16-5 at home and the Red Wings are 12-13-6 on the road.
In their last games the Blues lost to the Colorado Avalanche last night 5-2 and the Red Wings lost to the L.A. Kings 4-3 on Saturday.
The Blues have the worst home record in the league this season and they are the only team that does not have double digit wins at home.
The road team has won 6 of the last 7 games in this match up.
Detroit' offense has struggled all season and they only rank 24th in scoring (2.52 goals per game). The Red Wings hope that their offense can get a jump start tonight since Johan Franzen is coming back after missing 55 games with a knee injury. Last season he was the team's second leading goal scorer (34) and he had 59 points and in his career against St. Louis he has 6 goals and 5 assists in 11 games.
Much like Detroit St. Louis is not a high scoring offense, as they ranks 25th this season only averaging 2.50 goals per game. In 7 of their last 8 games the Blues have failed to score more than 2 goals.
With both offenses struggling the play of the goalies will be important in this game. Detroit's Jimmy Howard (20 wins 2.31 GAA save percentage 92.6%) and St. Louis' Chris Mason (17 wins 2.58 GAA save percentage 90.9%) will probably get the start between the pipes tonight and they have to play well, especially if their team struggles to score.
Just because these team's offenses have not played great this season in 4 of the last 5 games between these two teams in St Louis the total has gone Over.
Detroit is 3-9 in their last 12 games, and 1-4 in their last 5 road games, and has an Over record of 5-2 in their last 7 games.
St. Louis is 7-19 in their last 26 home games, 2-6 in their last 8 games against teams in the Central Division, and has an Under record of 5-2-1 in their last 8 games.
Our Selection : Neither one of these teams have been playing very well as of late. The Blues have the worst home record in the league. Detroit has been hampered by injuries all season, but the team should get some new life from the return of the Mule. Johan Franzen is coming back after missing 55 games with a knee injury. He was 2nd in scoring last year and his big body presence on the PP has surely been missed. The road team has won 6 of the last 7 games in this match up. Take Detroit -.5 +125 in 60 mins.
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.