NHL betting takes us down south to the Philips Arena in Atlanta as a couple of teams trying to get in the backdoor of the Eastern Conference playoffs tangle.  The Atlanta Thrashers are currently tied with Tampa Bay for 10th place with 66 points and tonight they’ll host the 9th place New York Rangers who have 65 points.  Neither team have looked too anxious to make a run–both have gone 4-4-2 in their last 10 games.  In any case, the game does present a good value opportunity on the total.  Since the Rangers don’t have ice girls these lovely girls from the Islanders’ ice girls graciously volunteered to fill in.

ATLANTA THRASHERS VS. NEW YORK RANGERS:

While most of the attention of sportsbooks patrons will be on college hoop this weekend, there’s still plenty of good NBA betting opportunities to take advantage of.  We’ll look at a Friday night game between the Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics. The Celtics are in third place in the Eastern Conference biding their time for the playoffs to begin, while the Pacers are the worst team in the conference outside of the state of New Jersey.  The Celtics don’t have a great home record this year at 18-12 but the Pacers are a brutal 7-27 on the road.

BOSTON CELTICS VS. INDIANA PACERS:

The last we heard from Polish strongman turned MMA fighter Mariusz Pudzianowski we reported on his proposed US debut against former UFC champ Tim Sylvia.  That was until I entered my local newsstand to see him leering at me from the cover of a MMA magazine (see photo) calling out current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar.  Clearly, Pudzianowski has every reason to want to break into the lucrative US marketplace though I’m not sure the fight sport equivilaent of jumping in front of a speeding semi on the freeway is the best way to go about it.

Whether or not the Sylvia fight comes to fruition, Pudzianowski already has a future opponent.  He’s signed to meet another Polish sports star, Robert Paczków, in Katowice, Poland on May 7th.  Paczków is definitely a good match in terms of experience–he’s 1-0 in his MMA career with a win over James McSweeney (who would later be a cast member on ‘The Ultimate Fighter).  Paczków will be an interesting test since he’s not only a big dude himself going 6′2″ 310 but has a background in Greco-Roman wrestling and sumo.

While basketball action is dominating the menu at sportsbooks there’s still plenty of NHL betting action out there.  We’ll take a look at an Eastern Conference game between the Carolina Hurricanes and Pittsburgh Penguins.  The Penguins have the 2nd best record in the East, three points ahead of New Jersey and Buffalo.  The Hurricanes are still mired in 13th place but have been one of the hottest teams in the NHL of late winning 8 of their L10 games with only one loss in regulation.  They dug a huge hole for themselves earlier in the campaign and are still 8 points behind Boston for the final playoff spot in the conference.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS VS. CAROLINA HURRICANES: