After an insanely busy sports betting weekend that had boxing, horse racing, hockey, soccer and a ton of NBA and college hoops we have something of a respite today.  There’s no college hoops on the board until tomorrow when the NIT tourney will begin along with the NCAA play in game between Winthrop and Arkansas Pine-Bluff.  Winthrop should win that game and advance, but we’ll talk about that in detail later.  Here in the US, we’ve got 6 NBA games and 3 NHL games. There’s not even much European soccer on the board with a single game in the Spanish La Liga and another in the English Premier League.  Fortunately, there’s a couple of good NHL betting positions on their short slate of games and we’ll take a look at the Eastern Conference battle between the Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils.

Both teams are currently in the postseason picture, though playing for different things at the moment.  New Jersey is currently in fourth place in the conference.  Obviously everyone is playing for second place at this point, as the Washington Capitals have a 14 point lead on second place Pittsburgh with 13 games left to play.  Mathmatically, its still possible to catch them of course but from a practical standpoint they’ve got it clinched.  If the Penguins ran the table they’d finish with 113 points meaning that Washington would have to do worse than 6-7 for them to not win the conference.

Boston, meanwhile, is trying to hang on to the 8th and final postseason slot.  They’re 4 points back of 7th place Montreal and lead the 9th place New York Rangers by 1 point.

BOSTON BRUINS VS. NEW JERSEY DEVILS:

Devils are a -165 home favorite and with a +145 takeback, Boston is an interesting proposition as a road underdog.  Bruins actually have more wins on the road than they do at home, while the Devils are a good home team though they’ve lost 10 games at the Prudential Center this year.  Devils have dominated the series in recent years, winning 7 of the L10 meetings and 3 of 4 at home but its not like they’ve blown the Bruins out of the building–the last 4 New Jersey wins in the series have been by a single goal.

Obviously, the first place you look to play on a total involving these teams is the Under.  New Jersey has the #1 ranked scoring defense in the NHL allowing a paltry 2.39 goals against per game.  Boston isn’t far behind, ranked 4th with a 2.43 goals against average.  Offensively, both teams struggle to put points on the board.  Boston is ranked dead last in scoring offense at 2.36 goals per game, while New Jersey is ranked 22nd at 2.60 goals per game.  Curiously, New Jersey ranks 16th and Boston 10th in shots on goal generated per game meaning they get the puck on net but don’t get it *in* the net.  The Bruins have gone Over in only 24 of 67 games (33 UN, 10 push) while the Devils have gone Over in only 25 of 66 games (36 UN, 5 push).

Head to head, 5 of the L8 meetings including both games this year and four straight overall have gone Under.  Both games this year have been won by the Devils by identical 2-1 final scores.  Over the last two seasons, the teams have played only one game Over the total with an average total goals per game of 3.5.  So there’s no real good basis for considering the Over in this matchup.

PLAY BOSTON/NEW JERSEY UNDER 5 +110

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