The Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks don’t like each other, and as a result they’ve got one of the nastier rivalries in the NHL.  It may not be *quite* as intense as the Calgary-Edmonton rivalry but its close.  After a shaky start to the season, the Canucks have been tearing it up of late and are now third in the Western Conference behind San Jose and Chicago.  The Flames have kind of run hot and cold all season long (no pun intended) but are tied with the Canucks for the Northwest Division lead with 55 points.  The Canucks have the tiebreakers and are ‘officially’ the division leader, which is why they’re ranked #3 in the conference despite having one less point than Phoenix.  The Flames and the Canucks go at it on Saturday night at Vancouver’s GM Place and we’ve got a NHL betting position on the game.

CALGARY FLAMES VS. VANCOUVER CANUCKS

At the start of the season Vancouver was having trouble scoring goals.  The thing is they were getting plenty of shots on the opponent’s net, but they just weren’t going in.  Obviously, when you’re putting the puck on net its just a matter of time before you start scoring goals and that’s exactly what has happened to Vancouver.  They’re now tied for #3 in the NHL in scoring average with San Jose at 3.20 goals per game and get 30.1 shots per game.  They’re also ranked #6 in goals against and #8 in shots on goals against, and when you’re at the top of both goals for and goals against you’re going to win a lot of hockey games.

For Calgary, its the same basic deal that its always been in recent years.  They don’t score a lot of goals and live and die with the performance of goalie Mikka Kiprusoff.  Calgary is #5 in goals against per game, but a middle of the pack #15 in shots allowed per game, giving up just over 30 per contest.  The Flames rank #18 in goals for per game, and #29 out of 30 teams in shots on goal per game.  In recent years, Calgary has become arguably the biggest public ‘under’ team in the NHL and this season they’ve pretty much justified that opinion with 26 ‘unders’ and 2 pushes in  44 games.  Vancouver has a slight bias to the ‘under’ at 20-23-1 but nothing like Calgary.  The public perception that Calgary = under is why there’s a 5 total on this game.

You’d think in a divisional rivalry between teams with a ‘history’ that you’d get a close checking, defensive oriented low scoring game.  Given Calgary’s preferred style of play, that seems even more logical.  But here’s the funny thing–this series has been dominated by ‘over’ games.  In three games this season, the two teams have combined for 22 goals, or  7.3 per game with all three going ‘over’.  11 of the last 15 head to head including five of the last six in Vancouver have exceeded the total.  For whatever reason, the stylistic matchup between Vancouver and Calgary produces high scoring games and that’s the position we’ll take here.

PLAY CALGARY/VANCOUVER OVER 5 -135