NHL betting tonight will take us to the Pacific Northwest where the Vancouver Canucks are hosting the St. Louis Blues.  And, yes, I know that the girl in this picture is wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey.  You have a problem with that?  I didn’t think so…

The St. Louis Blues are tied for 12th place in the Western Conference, but they’re only 5 points out of the final playoff spot.  Realistically, every team in the West except for bottom feeding Edmonton is still alive for the postseason.  Canucks have played well recently and are now tied for third place in the conference with Colorado.  Canucks have won five straight and 9 of their L12, while St. Louis has won six of their last nine games.

ST. LOUIS BLUES VS. VANCOUVER CANUCKS:

Vancouver has improved somewhat on the defensive end, but they still give up way too many shots and live and die with their goaltending.  Fortunately, Roberto Luongo is a notorious ‘workhorse’ and has always done well facing a barrage of shots every night.  Canucks offense isn’t a problem in the least.  They got off to a slow start this season, but since they were getting a lot of shots on goal it was only a matter of time before they started getting goals.  Vancouver is now third in the NHL in goals per game behind San Jose and Washington.  Blues are only #22 in that department, but Vancouver likes to play a wide open style meaning that they should be able to put some points on the board as well.

Canucks have done better limiting shots, but they still give up 29 per game.  They allowed 44 against Chicago and 32 to Buffalo in their previous two games, so they might be heading in the wrong direction.  So why the 5 total on this game?  Good question, as Vancouver has gone Over in four of their last six games while St. Louis has 3 Overs and a push in their last six.  Teams have already played three times this year, with two of those games exceeding the total.  Those games saw an average of six goals per game, and both teams have a fairly even O/U mark this year.  Hard to see fewer than five goals being scored here, so based on that the worst case scenario is a push.  More likely, the teams will play to their YTD form against each other and this game will go Over the total.

PLAY ST. LOUIS/VANCOUVER OVER 5 -140