Pittsburgh Penguins at Detroit Red Wings Betting Odds
Opening Moneyline: Pittsburgh +120 / Detroit -140 O/U 5.5 goals
Time: 7 PM EST Monday March 22, 2010 on Versus
Tonight in a match up of last year's Stanley Cup finals the Detroit Red Wings host the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins. While Pittsburgh is a lock to make the playoffs being the in the 2nd position in the Eastern Conference the Red Wings need to finish the season well to make the post-season for the 19th straight season. Detroit is currently in the 8th position in the Western Conference, but only lead 9th place Calgary by 2 points.
The Penguins are coming off a loss and are 6-2-2 in their last 10 games and the Red Wings are coming off a win and are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games.
This season the Red Wings are 19-10-5 at home and the Penguins are 21-14-2 on the road.
In their last games the Red Wings beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-3 on Saturday while the Penguins lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 on Saturday.
The Red Wings' defense, which has been solid this season allowing an average of 2.58 goals per game, has their work cut out for them in this game facing a Penguins' offense that ranks 5th in scoring (3.01 goals per game).
The Red Wings have to key on stars Sidney Crosby, who ranks 3rd in the league in points (88) and 2nd in the league in goals (45), and Evgeni Malkin, who is back after missing 2 games with a foot injury.
Detroit G Jimmy Howard (28 wins 2.32 GAA save percentage 92.4%) stopped 46 shots in a loss to the Penguins in January and in his last 5 games he is 4-1 with a GAA of only 1.75.
Detroit's offense is not the dynamic one like in the last few season, as they only rank 16th in scoring (2.66 goals per game). However, they will be facing a Pittsburgh defense, which is mediocre at best allowing an averaging of 2.88 goals per game.
Pittsburgh G Marc-Andre Fleury (33 wins 2.65 GAA save percentage 90.6%) has been up and down this season, but he stopped 23 of 24 shots in the win over the Red Wings earlier this season.
Betting Trends
Pittsburgh is 1-4 in their last 5 road games against teams with a winning home record, has an Under record of 4-1 in their last 5 games, and an Over record of 8-3 in their last 11 after scoring 2 goals or less in their previous game.
Detroit is 4-0 in their last 4 games against teams with a winning record, has an Over record of 4-1 in their last 5 home games, and an Over record of 5-2 in their last 7 home games against teams with a winning road record.
In the last 4 games between these 2 teams in Detroit the total has gone Under 4 times.
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.