The wagering board at most sportsbooks will be full of basketball games so it would be easy to miss the NHL betting opportunities that exist for Saturday.  We’ll take a look at the game between the Atlanta Thrashers and Tampa Bay Lightning.  Miraculously, this game actually has playoff implications.  Atlanta is currently in 8th place in the Eastern Conference with a tenuous claim to the final playoff spot.  How tenuous?  They’re actually tied with the 9th and 10th teams (the New York Rangers and Montreal) but hold the tiebreaker.  Tampa Bay is also in the mix–they’re in 11th place but just 3 points behind the aforementioned logjam and 4 points back of the Boston Bruins in seventh.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING VS. ATLANTA THRASHERS

We’ve used Atlanta Over the total quite a few times this season.  Despite the public perception that their scoring offense left in the Ilya Kovalchuk trade the Thrashers are still scoring goals at the same rate without him that they were with him in the lineup–in fact, they’ve marginally increased their goal per game output.  Atlanta might not be a great all around team but they do know how to ‘put the biscuit in the basket’–they’re ranked 6th in goals scored per game, and are one of only 7 NHL teams averaging more than 3 goals per game scored.  This puts them in some impressive company with Philadelphia, Washington, Vancouver, San Jose, Chicago and Pittsburgh.   Atlanta’s problem is that unlike the rest of the teams in the ’3 plus goal per game’ club they can’t keep the opponent from scoring either.  They’ve got the third worst goals against per game tally in the NHL behind Toronto and Edmonton and are only one of eight teams *allowing* more than three goals per game.

Tampa Bay isn’t a great defensive team either–they’ve got the 9th worst goals against per game number in the league and at 2.97 per are knocking on the door of the ‘three goals allowed per game’ club.  They don’t score as much as Atlanta does (ranking 20th in goals per game) but should get plenty of opportunities against a Thrashers team that gives up an average of 33.5 shots on goal per game (2nd worst in the NHL).  These teams have already met five times this season, with three of the games going Over the total.  Surprisingly, the last two meetings were both 2-1 games both won by the Lightning.  We’re thinking those games were something of an aberration–Antero Niittymaki made 37 saves in one game and 26 in the other game coming a week apart.  The three other games this year saw an average of 7.6 goals per contest.  11 of the L19 head to head and 5 of the L9 in Tampa have gone Over the total.  Look for a shootout in the Cigar City with this game going Over the total.

PLAY TAMPA BAY/ATLANTA OVER 6 -110