Pittsburgh Penguins at New Jersey Devils Betting Odds
Opening Moneyline: Pittsburgh +120 / New Jersey -140 O/U 5.5 goals
Time: 7 PM EST Wednesday March 17, 2010 on RDS
Tonight in an Eastern Conference match up of a couple of teams that are coming off a win the New Jersey Devils host the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins. New Jersey is 5-4-1 in their last 10 games and is in the 4th position in the East and Pittsburgh is 6-1-3 in their last 10 games and is in 2nd place in the East.
This season the Devils are 23-9-1 at home and the Penguins are 20-13-2 on the road.
In their last games the Penguins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on Sunday and the Devils beat the Boston Bruins 3-2 on Monday night.
New Jersey looks to sweep the season series with Pittsburgh, as they have won all 5 games against the Penguins this season.
Pittsburgh has a great offense ranking 5th in the league in scoring (3.04 goals per game). They are led by Olympic hero Sidney Crosby, who ranks 1st in the league in goals (45) and 3rd in points (87 points).
The Penguins offense will have to figure out a way to score on Devils' G Martin Brodeur (38 wins 2.35 GAA save percentage 91.4%), who not only leads the league in wins, but also has owned Pittsburgh this season. In 5 starts this season against the Penguins he has only allowed 3 goals and has 2 shutouts.
Brodeur and the Devils' defense will have to play well in this game, as their offense only ranks 22nd in the league in scoring (2.60 goals per game).
Pittsburgh star F Evgeni Malkin has not scored one point against the Devils this season and he may not play tonight after an injury sustained in his last game.
While Brodeur has been great this season against Pittsburgh the same can't be said about their goalie Marc-Andre Fleury (32 wins 2.65 GAA save percentage 90.7%), who has really struggled against New Jersey this season going 0-4-0 with a GAA of 4.04.
Pittsburgh is 5-1-1 in their 7 games since the Olympic break.
Even though the Devils do not have a high scoring offense the Penguins still have to worry about Zach Parise, who leads New Jersey in goals (32) and points (68) and is one 4 New Jersey players that has 2 goals this season against Pittsburgh.
Wagering Trends
Pittsburgh is 4-9 in their last 13 against teams with a winning record, has an Over record of 5-2 in their last 7 road games, and an Under record of 6-2 in their last 8 games against teams in the Eastern Conference.
New Jersey is 1-9 in their last 10 games following a win, 3-7 in their last 10 games against teams with a winning record, and has an Over record of 6-2-1 in their last 9 games.
In all 5 meetings between these 2 teams this season the total has gone Under every time.
Our Selection : The Devils have won five in a row at home and five straight in this series including a 3-1 victory three days ago. That being said, you won't see me laying nearly 1.5 to 1 on any hockey game. Instead I'm going to lay my action on the total in this game. All five games have gone under the posted total and I don't see that changing tonight. Take the Under 5.5.
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.