With the NBA heading into the All Star break and only Ivy League college basketball on the main board at the various sportsbooks around the world, most of the betting opportunity tonight takes place in the NHL.  The NHL will also be taking a break soon–and a more extended break as they shut down to allow their players to take part in the Winter Olympic games.  We’ll have a post coming up in the next couple of days about the handicapping implications of pro sports league ‘vacations’ like the All Star break and Olympic shutdown, but for the time being we’ve got a nice NHL betting opportunity on Friday night’s board.

MONTREAL CANADIENS VS. PHILADELPHIA FLYERS:

These are a couple of teams that its been almost impossible to figure out this season.  Both are hanging on for dear life to a playoff spot. The Flyers are currently in 7th place with 63 points while the Habs are in 6th just one point ahead.  At their worst this year, both teams have looked downright inept.  At their best, they’re capable of playing with anyone in the league as Montreal demonstrated on Wednesday as they defeated Pittsburgh in OT to end the Penguins 14 game winning streak.  Most recently, they’ve each won 6 of their L10 games and will now play a home-and-home series with the rematch slated for Saturday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

Despite having nearly identical YTD records and despite nearly identical recent form, the Flyers are a -185 favorite here.  If you’re like me, you’re scratching your head trying to figure out why this is the case.  The Flyers are a good but not great 17-11-2 at home, but Montreal has a decent 14-14-2 road record.  The Canadiens do have a negative goals for/goals against differential (-7) and are one of only four playoff qualified teams in either conference without a positive mark in this statistical category.  Still, that has little to do with their current form.

In my view, we’ve got two evenly matched teams in similar form with similar motivation in this spot.  For that reason alone, Montreal is worth taking a look at here.  This is the first meeting of the year between the Habs and Flyers, but Montreal dominated the series last season winning four of five games.  Going back even further, the Habs have only lost 9 of the last 26 meetings at Montreal in regulation.  So we’re getting an even matchup, with one team demonstrating the greater success recently in the series and having great success at this venue over the longterm.  For that reason, we’ll back the Flyers as decent sized underdogs.

PLAY  MONTREAL CANADIENS +165 OVER PHILADELPHIA FLYERS